Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup questions/thread

[Castanova]

Lol, died on Zot:5 when an Ancient Lich started summoning shit like a madman and then the stuff he summoned started summoning other stuff and I couldn't reach a staircase. I guess you really need more than level 1 resistances unless you're a DCSS expert or something. I suppose Abjuration would have been helpful too. Still, Zot:5 was about 10x harder than anything previously in the game. I felt like I was nearly invincible at that point.

 

[Zomg]

Moment of silence for a naga bro.

What was your final spell list? If you had ice storm it does a lot of unresistable damage even to very cold resistant enemies like arch-liches, with max range, and would blow away any summons too, so I'm guessing you didn't. Did you ever get the book of annihilations from sif muna, or ever get the spells in it in sif muna's artifact spellbooks?

 

[Castanova]

I don't know if I had the Annihilations book but I definitely had access to those spells. I didn't even bother memorizing Ice Storm because I wasn't even using Bolt of Cold except on the most dangerous of enemies. I assumed that Ice Storm was more of a spell for characters going for 15+ runes. I guess it's always a bad idea to underestimate a roguelike's endgame

Game lasted 13 hours across 150k turns! I can't say I'm in the mood to start up another Naga IE to try to get the revenge win. I'll have to play around with another fun combo until I get the hunger back.

BTW, I was looking at the Crawl tourney from 2009 (http://crawl.akrasiac.org/tourney09/overview.html), particularly the Fastest Wins list (both in turn counts and in real time). It's unbelievable. The winner did a Deep Dwarf Berserker in only 16k turns. I just have no concept of how that's possible.

 

[Zomg]

I think other RLs put me into that same "conserve the big spells" frame of mind too, but cold beam is only 50% more mana than icicle (and can hit multiple enemies at the same time) and ice storm is 50% more than beam (and can hit even more than that), and generally it takes one less cast even for single not-a-big-deal enemies. The magic damage in Crawl scales superlinearly with mana-per-cast/spell level. Generally I think it's a good idea to start using a given spell for most jobs as soon as you can cast it like nine times in ten.

OTOH ice storm and fire storm apparently cause a lot of level noise (like stepping on an alarm trap) so maybe not, I dunno, I admit I hardly used ice storm with my DEIE because I was using crystal spear, which in retrospect is a pretty bad spell and I was being stupid to get into close range with things like arch-liches to use it.

 

[betamin]

BTW, I was looking at the Crawl tourney from 2009 (http://crawl.akrasiac.org/tourney09/overview.html), particularly the Fastest Wins list (both in turn counts and in real time). It's unbelievable. The winner did a Deep Dwarf Berserker in only 16k turns. I just have no concept of how that's possible.

Holy shit, what do they do? Go down stairs asap and pray for a good rng inventory and no ood monsters? With a spriggan venom mage in 0.52 I could see it done but in 0.6 I don't know.

 

[Raghar]

Go down stairs asap and pray for a good rng inventory and no ood monsters? With a spriggan venom mage in 0.52 I could see it done but in 0.6 I don't know.

http://crawl.akrasiac.org/rawdata/rob/m ... 004620.txt

This is a log file.

 

[Zomg]

From reading spoilers I'd thought the fastest possible would be like something of lugonu (spriggan?) that takes a gamble on getting the abyssal rune quickly immediately after grabbing the faster stuff with speed and blinking, then dashing for the orb after corrupting Zot 5. Kinda shows how overpowered heavy armor used to be that he won the turns competition with basically no funny tricks like that unless that was like pre-lugonu or pre-othershitIdon'tknowabout.

 

[Zomg]

I've got a minotaur berserker on akrasiac going (the latency is pretty bad on my connection, but hey maybe it makes me think more about every action) and I'm halfway through lair, going axes+bows. Ammo management is such a pain; gifted ammo won't stack with found ammo for one thing and there is orcish/elvish/no-adjective ammo all in different stacks. I wish they'd just scrap ammo enchantments and racial prefixes totally (or just let them have brands only) and power up launchers to compensate.

 

[Damned Registrations]

Is it all low enchantment stuff? From the bit of ammo flinging I did with my spriggan hunter, decently enchanted stuff is damned near indestructible. I had some +4 darts of... frost I think that broke maybe once every 100 throws. As long as you watch out for slimes a single decently enchanted stack should last a good long while.

Unless that's a new version thing, dunno if the server is using 6.0. There's also steel ammo, which weighs more but is even harder to break than the normal stuff (Something like 90% less likely to break) so some steel foos +5 can probably last you through most of the game, certainly until you find some steel foos of reaping +9 or whatever strikes your fancy.

 

[Zomg]

How have I never noticed that before

am I a roguelike retard oh god

 

[Castanova]

Zomg, what name are you using on the server? I've recently started playing online using the same name as here.

 

[Zomg]

"geet" although I don't know if I'm gonna stick with it after I get this berserker killed, the ergonomic drop-off is extreme.

I haven't ID'd a single potion of speed yet (by quaff-IDing whenever I get a stack of 2 of anything), and no speed wand either, and I have no blink scrolls. I just know I'm going to get Zot Abyss'd and then squashed any time now.

 

[Castanova]

Looks like your Beserker's shaping up to be pretty good. I just killed that Enchanter doing something really really stupid. /sigh

 

[Malakal]

Just buried my fifth mid level merfolk enchanter, killed by orb of energy cast by gerater naga. This one got pwnt in the ass by Okawaru, who gifted me such awesome artifacts like +0 helmet -5EV/-5 DEX or +0 helmet +3 STR/-3INT. And no good artfact weapons, I didnt use a singkle piece of equipment gifted other than one sword... Damn, luck factor is sos trong i this game sometimes.

Also in all my runs as enchanter I havent found single spellbook with ozocobus armor. It should definitely be in the starting book.

 

[Castanova]

Why don't you try worshiping Sif Muna then? I've played a couple Vampire Enchanters but haven't got past the early game yet. The one I got to cLvl 5 or so seemed to be shaping up pretty fun, though. I like being able to manipulate your hunger level for various effects. His Spellcasting skill was training ridiculously slow, though.

 

[Malakal]

Vampire enchanter? Isnt that rather, no extremely difficult? You get the WORST level gain in the game, one of the worst stats, cant use berserk unless 'alive' which doesnt happen often and have weak skill apptitude. All that in exchange for very weak bonuses, and You dont even get undead bonuses unless completely dry on blood.
Personally I dont see vampires as good with anything. Maybe casters.

 

[Damned Registrations]

They get stealth better than anything else in the game (Even when 'Alive' they're on par with spriggans) and have some damned good modifiers for stabbery and such. Having the option of casting foodless like a mummy is extremely nice too- I can't touch most of my high level spells with a spriggan like invis and the like, since the food hit will kill you in the long run. You also get full equipment, which again, is nice in the long run, since some stealth boots and artifact helm and gloves will help out a ton more than slightly better innate EV values.

But yeah, early on you're pretty much fucked. You're undead, orc priests are everywhere, and you have the same speed as a mountain dwarf fighter without any of the hp. Also, stealth is useless on large groups anyways, and any schmuck can take out a single orc or ogre at a time, being able to do it in one backstab is really just for shits and giggles.

I wouldn't even bother training spellcasting much. You don't need the food cost reduction at all, and your MP is already quite good. Better to crank the spell schools so you get resisted less often and can reliably cast the big OMFG spells that make being a spellcaster worthwhile.

 

[Zomg]

Bat form. Early game it's amazing, you get a large evasion bonus on top of the speed.

Then go Kiku, corpse delivery lets you freely manipulate your satiety and you can do Tomb as your first rune if you want, at 7500 XP per greater mummy you come out at level 24 or so with a billion HP and necromancy at 15-25 depending on when you felt like switching it off. Shoals/Swamp/Snake pit ain't shit after that.

I can't find fucking levitation anywhere in my akrasiac game. Snake pit was the first rune, no levitation. Did Vault 8, no goddamn levitation. Did Crypt 5 until I ran into an ancient lich and had to run. Have burned five acquirement scrolls on jewelry. Is Shoals even possible without it?

Edit - And I go to loot Elf 7 for my last good chance to find levitate and the m-fing big fight room on Elf 7 where all the high level stuff hangs out IS BLOCKED BY FOUR TILES OF LAVA YOU HAVE TO LEVITATE OVERdsgdsgdshh;

 

[Castanova]

What they said. More on the Satiety manipulation: if you carry around potions of blood, you can quickly get to "Alive" where you get a regeneration bonus like a semi-Troll. That being said, it's really really hard to get through the early game I'm finding but I'd rather play a character that's back-loaded rather than front-loaded.

Zomg, why can't you just skip the Shoals? Vault + Snake + Slime? Or maybe go back and finish the Crypt?

 

[Zomg]

There's no rune in the crypt and I'd have to use one of my two rather precious speed potions to have any hope against that ancient lich anyway, and tomb is tomb - it's worse than the hells without Kiku, torment protection, abjuration and dispel undead. I actually found a rod of summoning so I could abjure but eh.

I'm already way outside my comfort zone on the guy doing stuff I haven't done with other characters. Doing slime pit without the cheesy speed buffs I'm accustomed to is going to be interesting with the slimes eating my arrows, but I looted Elf 7 after digging out an old discarded god gift with +blink to cross the lava and still no levitation so I don't have a choice.

 

[Malakal]

Hmm so You guys play enchanters as stabbers? Because I always choose the crusader approach for a warrior-mage. With haste/flight/swiftness/deflect missiles/regeneration/extension they pack quite a punch. Add silence for mage killing and ozocobus armor for ac (if You get lucky with spellboks).
Never liked stabbers, stabbing simply doesnt work later or against certain common enemies.

 

[Zomg]

Doesn't ice armor's AC buff depend entirely on your ice magic? I guess it's worth keeping up if you're extension-whoring even at like 3-4 AC.

I killed the royal jelly in that akrasiac game and one of the loot chambers had a fixed artifact necklace with control flight and levitate on it. Crawl you damn trickster. I guess I'll nuke the shit out of shoals with an overpowered character and then try to finish it as a 4-rune game tonight or tomorrow.

This character has made me pretty impressed by what an archer can do. With one of the ammo gifting gods it's like having a super iron shot spell that:

1) You can turn from ice to fire to non-elemental (with poison/reaping ammo if you're using a frost/fire bow) at will. Poison ammo poisons too, obviously.
2) Has the maximum range.
3) Is shooting like 2-3 times in the same time it takes to cast one spell once the skill gets high.
4) Still hits pretty hard with a +8 longbow.

And that's with a 90 aptitude minotaur and Trog, I'd bet an Okawaru centaur game where you could actually haste yourself without berserk would be a breeze. Without an ammo-gifting god you wouldn't be rolling in +4 ammo of every type, but you could still probably get a lot of mileage out of it.

 

[Zomg]

Been messing around and Halfling Hunter of Okawaru is strong, although slightly counterintuitive. They start with 30 +1 sling bullets that you have to save for dangerous things like orc priests/wizards and ogres down a few levels, meaning you have to creep around DL1 using your pretty-good starting stealth to only fight animals or unarmed humanoids until you find a stack of rocks or darts.

They start with a sling skill of 6 which is pretty good, and throwing crosstrains against it (and they have a really good aptitude for throwing anyway) so if you find a stack of +4 darts you're really in business. It's not wasted XP since you'll be able to get some mileage out of blowdarts with it later on. Anyway, once you're at the point where you're getting XP in 100 point chunks you start training dodge/shield, and by the time you're in mid-lair you can stand anything short of an entire death yak pack. Their durability between good dodge and shield aptitudes and the small body evasion bonus is very good, and when Okawaru starts dumping ammo and weapons on you (not to mention haste and might) you've got plenty of firepower for an easy 3-4 rune win, and you can probably switch to Nemelex or something if you want to go all the way.

Also learned a peculiarity about ammo, if you hold a stack to use an enchant weapon scroll on, both EW I and EW II give it the same damage bonus. Really good place to use a several EWI scrolls to make a huge stack of like +5 bullets/arrows/bolts.

 

[MisterStone]

because I was using crystal spear, which in retrospect is a pretty bad spell and I was being stupid to get into close range with things like arch-liches to use it.

Wasn't crystal spear like the awesomest conjuring spell in the game? Did they nerf it in the new version (haven't played yet)?

 

[Zomg]

Yeah, they made the range terrible. It's such a huge investment for what it does that you might as well just have 20-some conjuration and like 1 earth and cast iron shot at full power when you need unresistable damage.