Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup questions/thread

[Castanova]

OK, I finally seem to have gotten a handle on the early game with my Naga Ice Elementalist and now I'm on Lair:4 or so.

Question: how the fuck do you deal with Hydras? So far, my spellbook is almost exclusively Ice-based. I've got the standard Freeze, Throw Frost, that ice armor spell, Throw Icicle, and I just learned Bolt of Cold (although it's still at Honeycomb cost). I've got Mephitic Cloud and Confuse but no non-ice attack spells...

I blasted a 5-headed Hydra about 15 times with Throw Frost and he was barely even hurt. I had to waste two teleportation scrolls to get away. I ran into another Hydra later and killed him with 5 shots from my wand of draining but I feel like I shouldn't need to go to a wand every time I come across a hydra as there's sure to be several more down the road.

 

[Zomg]

Icicles will kill them pretty easily, like 3 shots if it's close to the power cap. Throw icicle is a fucking great spell, it can't be less than like 75% as much damage as mystic blast against stuff that resists ice, and massively better against non-resisting stuff. If you can cast bolt of cold dependably icicle should be low or no hunger and not far from the cap I think.

The power cap on throw frost makes it pretty useless at a certain point ~DL 10 and lair, all the damage spells work that way, eventually they just get obsolete aside from special jobs. You can amnesia it safely.

 

[Damned Registrations]

Hydras are just another stabbable thing for my enchanters. One shot kills every time.

It's the high regen rate that's screwing you over. Draining works cause you're gimping their max hp, I think they're poison immune so the only other option is the highest burst damage you can get. Or a flaming bladed weapon, I think that removes their heads slowly even if they regen the hp? Though surviving even one round of melee vs a hydra with ~8 heads is pretty risky unless you're in power armor or something.

 

[Raghar]

Question: how the fuck do you deal with Hydras? So far, my spellbook is almost exclusively Ice-based. I've got the standard Freeze, Throw Frost, that ice armor spell, Throw Icicle, and I just learned Bolt of Cold (although it's still at Honeycomb cost). I've got Mephitic Cloud and Confuse but no non-ice attack spells...

Bolt of fire. Bolt of cold should work too.

 

[Damned Registrations]

Got my best run so far going right now. Cleared lair and orc mines, wielding a +3/5 distortion dagger (About the only thing that'll reliably hurt everything a whole fucking lot). God gifts so far were a Cap (+0) (God gift), a cloak of poison resistance +2 (But the snake pits are guarded by 2 oklob plants too close to eachother to fight just one at a time, so fuck that), and a robe of resistance +2. Not that impressive but hardly terrible either.

No books for necromancy learning yet, but I have a book of the sky waiting in a shop for me so my next stop is to pick it up and learn airstrike, then head to the weapon halls. Oh, and I cleared out a labrynth and got myself some nice jewelry (2 Rings of strength, +3/6, and 2 rings of magic resistance) and a staff of energy.

No amulets so far though, very odd.

 

[Damned Registrations]

The vaults are being a bitch. Just managed to deal with norris but now I'm trying to kill a shadow dragon. And I lost my 3rd point of life resist I had somewhere along the way. Norris ate half my wands, not sure if I have enough left for this dragon. Of course, it's nearly enchant immune just like norris was. Fucking hell.

I don't think airstrike does extra damage to flying like it says. Even bees take 2 hits to kill.

 

[Zomg]

Do you have any air skill (which is what gives it power) or are you casting it off of spellcasting only or something? I've never used it really. I have no idea how to play a stabber besides spamming ensorcelled hibernation and I guess gunning for invis. Okawaru seems like he's kind of pointless for it since you'd get haste easily. Nemelex or Makhleb or something for fake conjuration/summoning power would probably be easier?

I've been playing vampire transmuters of kiku because there is really no excuse for losing with one and I'm sick of conjurors. Sigmund at the bottom of the stairs on DL2? Fine. Temple on D7 and Lair on D13? Fine. They have so many tools and distil+evap is fucking stupid nerfbait. But on the other hand I feel like they balanced the early game to make it so people with meph cloud/evap/berserk can't sleepwalk through it, meaning miserably dangerous for most starts.

Edit - wait wait I do have an excuse for losing, a fucking kobold with a sword of electrocution that hit a character of decent EV three times in a row and proc'd the lightning damage three times in a row when I was still in "rapidly press butan to mow down kobold" mode. Crawl I can't pay complete attention to every fucking lolbold be serious.

 

[Damned Registrations]

I got bored of plinking every fucking thing I ever encountered to death with lamestrike and elementals and let a yakataur kill me in the vaults. Repel missiles doesn't do fuck all vs them and deflect is is a level 6 spell- burns through all my food instantly.

Enchanters are fun until you encounter anything with a spine, at which point you realize everything enchanters can do offensively, so can one of a billion wands. Confuse wand, paralyze wand, enslavement wand, disintegrate wand. All can pretty much one shot all the things enchantment is actually useful for. What does enchantment get me? Unaffacted. Resisted. Resisted. Lol I have +2 arrows I go through your 30 evasion and repel missiles and still hit 50% of the time.

WTF.

I had level 14 air skill btw and about a third of my elementals turned on me, the RNG is retarded. Once it hit 15 they're all allied of course. Not that they're that useful, since they disappear half the time and therefore don't distract anything.

At least airstrike was great for killing ghosts. Too bad it was also my only real offense vs stone giants, 4 headed hydra skeletons, almost any unique past level 3, shadow dragons, skeleton warriors, any sort of mage version of anything. And it'd take like 80 mana to down just one skeleton warrior so I pretty much had to melee everything anyways. Which is obviously awesome as a spriggan that can only deal more than 5 damage by stabbing or distortion/elec brands.

Conjure or GTFO I guess.

 

[Malakal]

Airstrike sucks for damage, that should be noted and remembered. It is for clearing bees and other stuff resistant to magic as it is pure damage (I think).

Enchanters are all about being warrior-mages not nukers! You have haste, berserk, swiftness, flight, repel/deflect missiles and EXTENSION (also silence = elven halls are a breeze). Buff Yourself and then kill things with mellee. This is why playing weak races does not work really well. Try demonspawn enchanters or high elven/merfolks with axes/swords/polearms.

By the way air elementals are the most rebellious ones, try earth they should be friendly 95% of the time at level 5 earth magic.

 

[Raghar]

Lol I have +2 arrows I go through your 30 evasion and repel missiles and still hit 50% of the time.

Evade arrow 1/2 is actually great. It might be difference between killed easily and surviving.

At least airstrike was great for killing ghosts. Too bad it was also my only real offense vs stone giants, 4 headed hydra skeletons, almost any unique past level 3, shadow dragons, skeleton warriors, any sort of mage version of anything. And it'd take like 80 mana to down just one skeleton warrior so I pretty much had to melee everything anyways. Which is obviously awesome as a spriggan that can only deal more than 5 damage by stabbing or distortion/elec brands.

Have you heard about lightning? Air mages are actually using swiftness and lightning.

 

[Damned Registrations]

And when they run into a lightning immune they what, run for the top floor and escape with 0 runes?

Spriggans can't learn conjurations worth shit anyways. I was learning airstrike specifically because it's pure air school.

And 1/2 anything isn't great. It's not dependable at all. The odds of it doing nothing at all 3 times in a row is still 12.5% - so after 10 encounters you'll get killed thinking it was actually going to protect you somehow. And if you can survive it failing that much in the first place, you didn't need it anyways and should have spent the mana on something else.

It worked well enough vs centaurs and low accuracy ranged attacks (More like 90% evasion), but again, anything with a spine will just ignore it anyways, so what's the point?

 

[Castanova]

@ DamnedRegistrations:

Coincidentally, I just saw that the famous 78291 just ascended an Air Elementalist yesterday on the online server. It may be of some help for you to check out his morgue file:

http://crawl.akrasiac.org/rawdata/78291 ... 171320.txt

He's a Draconian, not a Spriggan, but still - you can see what spells he chose and you can see how he progressed through the dungeon at the bottom of the file.

 

[Raghar]

And when they run into a lightning immune they what, run for the top floor and escape with 0 runes?

They'd cast insulation and use a wand of fire, or bow, or a weapon of distortion. Or they would spend the effort to learn more than one school of magic.

And 1/2 anything isn't great. It's not dependable at all. The odds of it doing nothing at all 3 times in a row is still 12.5% - so after 10 encounters you'll get killed thinking it was actually going to protect you somehow. And if you can survive it failing that much in the first place, you didn't need it anyways and should have spent the mana on something else.

In my experience it's more like: 5+ yakataurs are firing from multiple directions and there are also 2 yakataur captains on top of that. Being able to shrug off anything is actually great especially when you could have it already active. (Otherwise haste and possibly teleport come first.) Thought in lowest level of Vaults a teleport is generally a bad idea. (It might be even more funny when you don't have haste.)
15 hits is less than 30 hits. A chance for 30 hits is 1/2^30, which is low even for crawl.

To be able to ignore these low yakataurs can be very helpful, to deal with these 2 yakataur captains.

Of course anyone knows that weak spell is useful only against weak monsters. It's unlikely to help against Stone Giant.

 

[Damned Registrations]

I had an assload of magic schools, wands, and a weapon of distortion. I just got sick of breaking out 9 of them every time I ran into a lone skeleton warrior (which had to be lured up stairs to be killed.) Never mind burning through 10 wand charges to kill anything stronger than that. There's like ~2-3 uniques per level in some places, I don't find 30 charges worth of fire wands on each level.

And seriously, what killed me was a lone yakataur. I had repel up, he hit me twice while my spells were failing, and I said 'Fuck it, I can't afford to waste wands/healing pots/blink scrolls on a single fucking yakataur' so I tried confuse again. BAM 25 more hp lost from a fucking arrow. Dead spriggan. This was after killing dozens of the fuckers tediously luring them up stairs and sperately them, etc. Anything that gives you less xp for being killed than you spend casting one spell once shouldn't take more than 3 turns to kill reliably.

 

[Zomg]

Draconian air elementalist of vehumet doesn't have much similarity to a sprig enchanter. Although it seems like a nice combo, dracs get intrinsic flight control so the starting book has the flight+swift combo in it, and air elementalists also have a problem where they can't kill anything below a few levels deep when triple/double zap bounces stop working if they don't get a mystic blast or lightning bolt book early, but with a draconian the breath would fill the gap nicely until you can pad out veh's piety for book gifts (green especially). I'll definitely try it when I'm less sick of conjurers.

 

[Castanova]

Got a very promising Naga Ice Elementalist going right now and I'll be pretty fuckin' pissed if I don't ascend him. Got a couple questions:

1) I went to Elf:7 and someone summoned a Pit Fiend. How to deal with them appropriately? It seems to point at me and smite me for 15-50 damage every 5 turns or so and I only have ~140 hp. I nearly died twice running away. Is it a matter of me simply raising up my casting skills a bit more so I can cast Bolt of Cold without such a huge hunger cost?

2) I cleared the Swamp, Shoals 1-4, Elf 1-6, Hive, Vault 1. I'm level 20 right now. However, my spells are not totally optimal because I've found/been gifted literally every book in the game besides the ones with the spell that lets you forget spells (and I'm too miserly to use the Sif Muna power although I guess I should at this point). What are your suggestions on what to do next? Finish the Shoals? Clear Vault 1-7? Start the Slime Pit?

Also, suggestions on which 2 remaining runes would be easiest. I'm assuming Shoals is one of them. Which is easier, Slime Pit or the Vault? Or something else?

 

[Zomg]

The pit fiend is temporary and will disappear after a few dozen turns. I usually just haste+swift+fly or telecontrol+blink away to a staircase at that stage of the game to regen until summons poof, although you can also get a few levels of summoning and learn abjuration, a level 3 summoning spell which will (try to) kill every summon in visual range simultaneously, although you need a pretty significant investment in summoning to get it to be super nice.

Edit - I realize I wrote a huge amount here, I am a crawl nerd. If you read this it will probably take away your enjoyment of learning it yourself. You were warned. vvv

Definitely use the Sif Muna amnesia thing to get your spells in order. If you've dipped heavily into enchanting you probably want haste+fly+swiftness. Either that or blink+telecontrol. Also deflect missiles, which will protect a pretty squishy caster from packs of centaurs/yaktaurs if you throw it on as soon as you see one (or keep it up perpetually if you enjoy being annoyed). I'd gun for a high or max power bolt of cold to finish shoals, to kill the boggarts you'll probably meet in vault 1-7 before they summon a ton of horrible shit, and to be your royal jelly killer (I don't think ice storm is doable until super late for a naga, although I'm just guessing, but it's impressive shit).

To do slime pit you want a couple points of cold resist but it's not that dangerous for a conjurer with a strong beam, you can pretty much kill everything as soon as it pops out (the azure jellies are cold resistant so you have to orb them or mystic blast them or some shit). The royal jelly itself is fun to figure out and the main spoily tip I'd give is that the slimes that spawn off of it when damaged are NOT summons, and won't poof, so don't go up a floor and wait 50 turns and expect them to disappear. TRJ is also really fast moving, but not as fast as haste+swift+flight, I think even for a naga, but have some blink scrolls in case. Oh, and having said that, controlled blinks (which is what the scroll does) and tleports don't work properly on the bottom floor while TRJ is still alive, so lure it up a floor if you want that level of insurance.

Vault 8 is extremely dangerous just HP damage wise and you want 2-3 levels of drain resist and at least 1 level of fire and cold resist, and the best AC and EV you can get. You also need to have massive damage output to do it as a conjurer so I think that's an ice storm kinda place, and I think deflect missiles is also near-mandatory there instead of just really nice (tons of stone giants and shit throwing rocks). You should be able to handle stuff that spawns on DL27 easily if you're ready for V8, for example. It's about as dangerous as the endgame I think. It was a heart-stopper for my DEIE but with Naga HP it might not be as scary.

Vault 1-7 are not anything like that, they're just big open dungeon levels that have the same kind of enemies that spawn around like DL 16-20, they're only dangerous in that they're so open.

I think you don't have much shot at doing tomb with an ice conjurer without being massively spoiled (I've only done it with a perfect build to do it with, an undead kiku necromancer) but you could go do the non-bottom levels of crypt (it's a branch from the vaults - it's like elf in that it has no rune, just loot - and tomb is a branch from crypt) for conjuration XP with orb of destruction or mystic blast once you see the stairs there. I've never done any of the other runes besides swamp/shoals/snake pit/vault so IDK.

Also stop and do the hall of blades, a 1-level branch from the upper vault levels. It has a bunch of dancing weapons in it with no HP but high evade, but mystic blast has awesome accuracy and will 2-hit kill them most of the time and the XP is pretty good.

 

[Castanova]

Cleared out more of the Vaults, did the Hall of Blades, and then finished The Shoals. Almost died when a unique summoned 8 elementals and I got surrounded by them plus about 8 more various merfolk. Mephitic Cloud is ridiculously key.

I need one more rune and it sounds like The Slime Pits is the low-hanging fruit right now. I'm thinking I'll clear out the main dungeon as far as I can go safely for XP and god gift books before I take on the Royal Jelly. Everyone makes TRJ sound like a real beast...

Here's my guy right now:

AA the Gelid (Naga Ice Elementalist)              Turns: 105269, Time: 10:16:42

HP 139/139       AC 32     Str 11      Exp: 22/582686 (1), need: 10113
MP  45/45        EV 24     Int 30      God: Sif Muna [******]
Gold 2734        SH 18     Dex 19      Spells: 12 memorised, 10 levels left

Res.Fire  : + . .   See Invis. : +   B - staff of power
Res.Cold  : + . .   Warding    : .   t - +5 elf robe {rC+ rF+}
Life Prot.: . . .   Conserve   : +   W - +3 buckler {AC+3}
Res.Poison: +       Res.Corr.  : +   U - +1 wizard hat
Res.Elec. : +       Clarity    : .   x - +2 cloak {rCorr, Cons}
Spirit.Shd: .                        z - +0 pair of gloves
Sust.Abil.: .       Rnd.Telep. : .   D - +2 naga barding
Res.Mut.  : .       Ctrl.Telep.: .   b - amulet of Tytz {Gourm EV+3 Acc+3}
Res.Rott. : .       Levitation : .   A - +5 ring of evasion
Gourmand  : +       Ctrl.Flight: .   r - ring of Augurer {rElec AC+5 EV+6 Int+4 Dam

@: very slow, very resistant to hostile enchantments, extremely stealthy
A: spit poison, poison resistance, see invisible, deformed body 1, -10% mp, Dex
+8
a: Spit Poison, Channel Energy, Forget Spell, Renounce Religion

   Skills:
 + Level 2 Fighting
 - Level 1 Staves
 + Level 4 Dodging
 + Level 10 Stealth
 + Level 3 Shields
 - Level 1 Traps & Doors
 + Level 12 Spellcasting
 + Level 20 Conjurations
 + Level 4 Enchantments
 + Level 1 Translocations
 + Level 20 Ice Magic
 + Level 1 Air Magic
 + Level 2 Poison Magic


You have 10 spell levels left.
You know the following spells:

 Your Spells              Type           Power          Success   Level
a - Freeze                Ice            #####          Perfect     1
b - Blink                 Tloc           N/A            Excellent   2
c - Iskenderun's Mystic   Conj           ########.      Perfect     4
d - Throw Icicle          Ice/Conj       ########.      Perfect     4
e - Confuse               Ench           ######....     Excellent   3
f - Ensorcelled Hibernat  Ice/Ench       #######        Excellent   2
g - Mephitic Cloud        Pois/Air/Conj  #######...     Excellent   3
h - Bolt of Cold          Ice/Conj       ########..     Excellent   6
i - Throw Frost           Ice/Conj       #######        Perfect     2
j - Apportation           Tloc           ####......     Excellent   1
k - Ozocubu's Armour      Ice/Ench       #######...     Excellent   3
l - Control Teleport      Ench/Tloc      #####.....     Very Good   4

 

[Zomg]

Nice ring and amulet. That AC is really good, combined with the buckler and ice armor you're probably vault 8 safe already aside from the resists. Where did the +8 dex come from?

I'd shut off poison magic so mephitic cloud doesn't waste XP that it doesn't need and also get traps + doors up to like 6 or 7 ASAP, a Zot trap can Abyss you and with a naga without the speed buffs you'd be seriously fucked without a bunch of haste potions/wand charges on hand.

Everyone makes TRJ sound like a real beast...

It's just kind of a low-spoiler-player rapist due to having several special rules and high speed.

 

[Castanova]

Yeah, I've already gotten hit with one Zot trap but it only reduced one of my stats temporarily.

The +8 dex was bizarre. I can't remember exactly where but early in the game there was one of those little rooms off in the corner guarded by some mildly out of depth monster(s). In the room were 8 unidentified potions... ended up being Potions of Gain Dexterity, I think they were called. They each give a +1 Dex mutation. I drank a Cure Mutation, though, to get rid of that -10% MP and it killed 2 of the Dex mutations along with it.

I am struggling a bit with the resists, though. I've been ID'ing artifact weapons hoping for something good but so far no luck. I might skip Vault 8, kill TRJ, and try to lock in my first win. Not sure. I'm almost down to D:27 already and then I need to decide.

 

[Zomg]

Well, the thing is if you have the firepower, toughness and resists to do Zot in a controlled, low-spoiler friendly and non-retarded way (unlike the way I did it I mean) you have enough firepower for V8 and vice-versa. Plus, there's helpful loot in there.

 

[Castanova]

Well, cleared Vault:8 without much trouble. It was a laborious process but I was only in any real danger maybe one time and I barely even use Bolt of Cold. I swear, Ice Elementalists are great nub characters. Just Throw Icicle and the occasional Mephitic Cloud is enough to handle most of the mandatory parts of the game.

Got three runes now so I think I'm gonna go ahead and skip the Slime Pits. Only question is if I should go back and complete Elf:7 but I'm getting a bit antsy. I got a ring upgrade but still only rC+ and rF+...

Doesn't help that I'm gone this weekend. Oh well. Will have to resume on Tuesday.

 

[Zomg]

You can probably hack it with rF++ (got a ring of fire protection?), your rElec ring, rMutation if you can find it or some cure mutation potions/an amulet of stasis if not, and maybe rN+ really. Your character sounds very durable if you could just squash vault 8 with icicle. I'm playing with a vampire transmuter ATM with over 200 hp and 50 evade and it's a different game from the deep elf ice elementalist, you can actually take some damage without immediately dropping everything to GTFO, so all my recommendations are probably overestimates.

 

[Castanova]

I have a Ring of Fire Resistance but I need both ring slots right now, especially since Vault:8 replaced my +5 EV ring with a randart (+8 EV and rN+). I guess I might as well do Elf:7 since I get the sense it's easier than Vault:8. Maybe I'll get a nice amulet with resists to replace my Gourmand/EV artifact amulet. I think I have a bunch of cure mutation potions saved up for the ascension run.

On a side note, I'm now convinced that DCSS is the best roguelike out there. Anyone know what kind of changes they're testing in 0.7?

 

[Malakal]

I am playing 0.7, new changes include completely different demonspawn mutation system (and also retarded as now You can change feet into talons, hands into claws etx, greatly reducing number of slots) and... actually thats all I noticed.

And I wouldnt reccomend Elf 7 unless You can handle Abyss. Or can get insane magic resistance to avoid it.