Crawl .20: Home of the Frog Dog

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Anias: Jun 3, 2010; It really is a lovely hat

vOv posted:

Any advice for where I should take this DsVM? I'm almost done with Lair, and I figure after that and Orc the effectiveness of my poison spells is going to start dropping off, but given the books I have and the Stone Arrow Vehumet is offering me I don't know what to go into.

d - Freezing Cloud Conjuration/Ice/Air 6

This seems a reasonable pivot from spamming mephitic cloud on things, and maybe your devotion to conjuration will get Veh to cough up IOoD.

# ? Mar 17, 2017 02:30

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# ? May 16, 2024 00:59

Fitzy Fitz: May 14, 2005

vOv posted:

Any advice for where I should take this DsVM? I'm almost done with Lair, and I figure after that and Orc the effectiveness of my poison spells is going to start dropping off, but given the books I have and the Stone Arrow Vehumet is offering me I don't know what to go into.

I recommend working toward freezing cloud. Pick up conjure flame soon too. They both use conjurations and air (well not CF). You'll need to start training air magic, but that will also benefit mephitic cloud and poisonous vapours, so it's a pretty easy transition.

# ? Mar 17, 2017 02:32

Sage Grimm: Feb 18, 2013; Let's go explorin' little dude!

Also if you ever get Poison Arrow treasure it and spam it as your single target spell. Switch from Spellcasting training to Conjurations if you think 22 MP is enough; 10 spare spell slots is plenty for Vehumet's roulette.

And for goodness sake put on that ring of wizardry your other finger is getting cold.

# ? Mar 17, 2017 03:21

Anias: Jun 3, 2010; It really is a lovely hat

Sage Grimm posted:

Also if you ever get Poison Arrow treasure it and spam it as your single target spell. Switch from Spellcasting training to Conjurations if you think 22 MP is enough; 10 spare spell slots is plenty for Vehumet's roulette.

They nerfed it to 30% from 60% but it's still good.

# ? Mar 17, 2017 03:47

vOv: Feb 8, 2014

Well, I wound up dying because I went downstairs next to a deep troll I forgot about. Oh well.

VM is definitely interesting; you can kill tons of poo poo with radiance at the expense of being completely helpless against things like ghosts.

# ? Mar 17, 2017 04:55

apple: May 18, 2003; Jose in the club wearing orange suspenders

The trick to playing VM as a DS is to train melee and defensive skills once you have poisonous vapors and OTR castable; Demonspawn are capable fighters and their flat aptitudes means you can melee with whatever first good thing you find (like the vamp rapier). Even considering Vehumet you could have first gotten your rapier to mindelay or close and trained fighting (0 in fighting is bad even if you were a blaster caster), and trained dodging some more while memorizing vehumet spells along the way. After that depending on what equipment you find you can decide to become a more tabby character or more of a magedude.

# ? Mar 17, 2017 05:16

rj54x: Sep 16, 2007

I Love You! posted:

Unless you already have a great evenstar or demon whip, of course.

It's almost always worth swapping if you find an endgame 1hander from another 1hander skill since it doesn't really take that many points before you are way stronger than you were before.

Thanks for the advice. Only took two more dungeon levels to get the katana down to mindelay and now I'm absolutely melting everything I run into. I'm sure this means a horrific, stupid death is right around the corner.

# ? Mar 17, 2017 13:56

Thug Lessons: Dec 14, 2006; I lust in my heart for as many dead refugees as possible.

I like the new division of species into Simple, Intermediate and Advanced, but some of the classification is wonky, like how VS is listed as advanced but Gh is simple. VS has low HP and healing potential but just completely shits on everything, whereas ghoul is IMO one of the harder species to actually win with because of their crappy apts. The only logic I can see is ironically an advanced player logic that prioritizes early-game survival over all else, whereas those classifications should be there to help new players.

# ? Mar 17, 2017 14:01

Darox: Nov 10, 2012

It's especially weird because ghouls recently got screwed by the regeneration mut change so they're even harder to use.

# ? Mar 17, 2017 14:08

Speleothing: May 6, 2008; Spare batteries are pretty key.

On a related note, Monks should be listed as Zealots, not Warriors

# ? Mar 17, 2017 14:42

Fridurmus: Nov 2, 2009; Break a leg!

I'm really, really bad at this game and usually die before reaching anything past D6 to some stupid move or another, but my biggest mystery is training skills, when to stop training or start training certain ones on any given character, etc. Is there some good general advice for that?

# ? Mar 17, 2017 15:05

Chas McGill: Oct 29, 2010; loves Fat Philippe

Can someone give me a primer on why rods are cool and good? I just picked up a lightning rod on Spider 1 and my evocations skill is only 6.4.

# ? Mar 17, 2017 15:11

FulsomFrank: Sep 11, 2005; Hard on for love

Fridurmus posted:

I'm really, really bad at this game and usually die before reaching anything past D6 to some stupid move or another, but my biggest mystery is training skills, when to stop training or start training certain ones on any given character, etc. Is there some good general advice for that?

I think most people will give you variations on one answer or another but generally speaking if you're playing a melee guy, you want to train your weapon skill until you hit minimum attack delay on your weapon type (axes, long blades, polearms etc.). You can find this information by examining your weapon in your inventory and it'll say you can reach mindelay at X level. You can also do a quick check by hitting "@" which will tell you how fast you attack (quite fast, above average, slow). You want to get this to something you're comfortable with. Some people turn off every skill except the one they're training, I prefer to just focus on the one or two that I am really interested in and go from there, depending on what comes my way.

When you get into Magic and casters things get a bit weirder but are kind of the same in my opinion. You want to dump points in conjurations and/or the related spell school (air, fire, ice) until you've got A) good success rate on casting and B) good damage on said spells. Success rate is better than maxing damage but they usually go hand in hand. That said, I'm no expert and someone will probably pipe in with better advice that contradicts what I've told you. Spellcasting is important as well, but I believe it's more useful for getting spellpoints to spend on your various spells, and only provides a small bonus to success rate.

In general, you just get a feel for things, especially monsters to avoid/handle differently. My biggest piece of advice is to start with a Gargoyle/Minotaur fighter and have fun with trying to get a 3-rune win. A troll berserker can get you pretty far too, at least past the 6th floor.

# ? Mar 17, 2017 15:17

dpeg: Jul 18, 2008; As far as I see it, you should never go to SA to look out for useful feedback or even interesting ideas; I certainly don't

Speleothing posted:

On a related note, Monks should be listed as Zealots, not Warriors

I can get behind this. Will try to bring it up on ##crawl-dev. Their shtick is the ** piety bonus, and I agree that can be best communicated by classification as Zealot.

# ? Mar 17, 2017 15:21

I Love You!: Dec 6, 2002

apple posted:

The trick to playing VM as a DS is to train melee and defensive skills once you have poisonous vapors and OTR castable; Demonspawn are capable fighters and their flat aptitudes means you can melee with whatever first good thing you find (like the vamp rapier). Even considering Vehumet you could have first gotten your rapier to mindelay or close and trained fighting (0 in fighting is bad even if you were a blaster caster), and trained dodging some more while memorizing vehumet spells along the way. After that depending on what equipment you find you can decide to become a more tabby character or more of a magedude.

I always tell people that venommage is secretly a hybrid and not a true caster because if you play it like a true caster you are 100% relying on the floorgod to save you with very specific books and few undead/demons with the odds stacked heavily against you

Since all you need is to get Olgreb's castable you can stop putting points into spell skills once it is and just ramp your melee capabilities. There's no need to go further into magic for a huge stretch of the game, olgrebs can cheese 2/4 lair branches, most of lair, and most of dungeon. You may as well even wear medium armour unless you're doing somethign specific like Vehemut, but I don't really think leaning blaster is ideal.

I Love You! fucked around with this message at 16:33 on Mar 17, 2017

# ? Mar 17, 2017 16:30

LazyMaybe: Aug 18, 2013; oouagh

If you're doing a melee guy, train weapon skill+fighting at first. you can focus weapon skill. once you have at least 10 fighting, you can turn it off for a bit and start training armor or dodging alongside weapon skill(only stop training weapon skill at mindelay). grab some evocations/invocations/stealth if you want along the way depending on your character, but they are less important than melee skills for most dumb bruisers.

most important actual advice is to play it slow, pull things back into explored territory near stairs before fighting them, and flee from fights/use consumables when things get hairy.

Chas McGill posted:

Can someone give me a primer on why rods are cool and good? I just picked up a lightning rod on Spider 1 and my evocations skill is only 6.4.

Repeatedly zap it at orb spiders until they die. Also train more evo and use it to kill tougher things as well, and lines of enemies in hallways

# ? Mar 17, 2017 16:50

I Love You!: Dec 6, 2002

Chas McGill posted:

Can someone give me a primer on why rods are cool and good? I just picked up a lightning rod on Spider 1 and my evocations skill is only 6.4.

Rods are good because they are reusable high-damage spells that don't require much skill investment and can be used by anyone including idiots in platemail.

# ? Mar 17, 2017 16:56

Chas McGill: Oct 29, 2010; loves Fat Philippe

Up to evoc 16 and have been blasting everything with the rod and all the wands I've picked up. Weakening stuff with the evoc items and then wading in wu jian kung fu is amazing for destroying crowds.

# ? Mar 17, 2017 17:00

Sage Grimm: Feb 18, 2013; Let's go explorin' little dude!

http://crawl.akrasiac.org/rawdata/Grimm/morgue-Grimm-20170317-021500.txt

code:

1872580 Grimm the Octopoid Aeon (level 27, 146/146 HPs)
             Began as an Octopode Ice Elementalist on Mar 16, 2017.
             Was the Champion of Cheibriados.
             Escaped with the Orb
             ... and 3 runes on Mar 17, 2017!
             
             The game lasted 03:41:03 (57113 turns).

Grimm the Octopoid Aeon (OpIE)                     Turns: 57113, Time: 03:41:04

Health: 146/146    AC:  5    Str: 22    XL:     27
Magic:  49/49      EV: 30    Int: 41    God:    Cheibriados [******]
Gold:   4322       SH: 21    Dex: 37    Spells: 8 memorised, 8 levels left

rFire  + . .      SeeInvis +      - Unarmed
rCold  + . .      Gourm    .    D - +5 shield {rF+}
rNeg   + . .      Faith    .    X - +3 hat of Pondering {ponderous, MR+ MP+10 Int+5}
rPois  .          Spirit   +    V - amulet of guardian spirit
rElec  +          Reflect  .    G - ring of Shadows {Umbra +Inv Stlth+}
rCorr  +          Harm     .    Q - ring of resist corrosion
MR     ++++.                    a - ring of Rudesago {rN+ Str+2 Stlth+}
Stlth  +++++.....               C - ring "Qulaupas" {Slay+2 SInv}
                                h - ring of protection from magic
                                J - ring of Tisut {rElec Dex+3}
                                q - ring of wizardry
                                Z - ring of the Octopus King {rC+ AC+1 EV+1 Str+1 Int+1 Dex+1}

@: wreathed by umbra, repel missiles, drained, very slow
A: almost no armour, stealthy swim, amphibious, 8 rings, constrict 8, camouflage
1, blurry vision 1, deterioration 1, dopey 2, frail 2, slow regeneration 2, weak
2, gelatinous body 1
a: Bend Time, Temporal Distortion, Slouch, Step From Time, Renounce Religion,
Evoke Invisibility
0: Orb of Zot
}: 3/15 runes: barnacled, silver, gossamer

This was a dumb fun game, glad to have finally experienced it. Really felt the slow against orb spiders and 14 orbs of fire, as evidenced by the number of bad mutations I picked up. There was one occasion against a quicksilver dragon and two tentacled monstrosities that I was just bad at resetting the fight from low MP and HP but I managed to do it without burning too many unnecessary consumables. Otherwise once I could cast Statue Form any fights just ended up with me thrashing everything that decided a slow, stony octopus was a great target. Trained up Invocations further than necessary because I rarely pick up a piety title.

Thinking the direct halving of Stealth when you pick up the Orb is rather silly but whatever, managed to stomp my way up to D1 without having to stop and fight much.

# ? Mar 17, 2017 17:55

rj54x: Sep 16, 2007

Chas McGill posted:

Up to evoc 16 and have been blasting everything with the rod and all the wands I've picked up. Weakening stuff with the evoc items and then wading in wu jian kung fu is amazing for destroying crowds.

Wait. I thought there were no rods in trunk anymore?

# ? Mar 17, 2017 19:58

LazyMaybe: Aug 18, 2013; oouagh

correct

# ? Mar 17, 2017 20:03

weirdly chilly pussy: Oct 6, 2007

rj54x posted:

Wait. I thought there were no rods in trunk anymore?

There's the lightning rod, but you don't have to wield it.

# ? Mar 17, 2017 20:14

apple: May 18, 2003; Jose in the club wearing orange suspenders

I Love You! posted:

I always tell people that venommage is secretly a hybrid and not a true caster because if you play it like a true caster you are 100% relying on the floorgod to save you with very specific books and few undead/demons with the odds stacked heavily against you

Since all you need is to get Olgreb's castable you can stop putting points into spell skills once it is and just ramp your melee capabilities. There's no need to go further into magic for a huge stretch of the game, olgrebs can cheese 2/4 lair branches, most of lair, and most of dungeon. You may as well even wear medium armour unless you're doing somethign specific like Vehemut, but I don't really think leaning blaster is ideal.

Blaster is cool and good if you get lucky with +int items, I had a DrVM become a blaster dude with tornado: http://crawl.berotato.org/crawl/morgue//bananaken/morgue-bananaken-20170216-175729.txt

Not that I had a choice to become tankier with lack of armor, but how much int you run into would determine whether or not I rely more on spells in the level 6-7 range.

# ? Mar 17, 2017 20:17

Chas McGill: Oct 29, 2010; loves Fat Philippe

weirdly chilly pussy posted:

There's the lightning rod, but you don't have to wield it.

That's what I was using.

# ? Mar 17, 2017 20:38

LordSloth: Mar 7, 2008; Disgruntled (IT) Employee

vOv posted:

Any advice for where I should take this DsVM? I'm almost done with Lair, and I figure after that and Orc the effectiveness of my poison spells is going to start dropping off, but given the books I have and the Stone Arrow Vehumet is offering me I don't know what to go into.

Moot point, but literal advice for where to take a Venom Mages in general after lair & orc:
If you have Snake & Swamp, finish off the dungeon to fifteen. Maybe do it first anyways if you have Spider & Shoals.

Spider branch is exceptionally target rich for Olgreb's Toxic Radiance. Almost no preparation needs to be done to tackle it. Notable things to keep an eye out for: Demonic Crawlers, Emperor Scorpions, Ghost Moths all resist poison (and Ghost Moths also resist Freezing Clouds just to spite you).

Snake is difficult for obvious reasons, but the extra monster diversity over older versions is a godsend. Mephitic Cloud will be a lifesaver against Anacondas and Shock Serpents, and can muddle Salamanders (that have never yet been a threat to me). That still leaves the majority species as quite troublesome, but aside from Blink Encircle, Haste, Guardian Serpents, and Mana Vipers, you can outrun that poo poo. Sadly, those threats are common enough it isn't gonna be easy.

Shoals: Damned Harpies. The layout and ranged enemies make OTR mostly useless, but mephitic cloud is still good - if you keep stairs within a reasonable distance as it isn't uncommon for things to approach from your rear after an explosion. Depending on god & spell books, a much better outcome than Swamp... but if you've broken out of pure poison magic, I'd much rather do swamp (aside from goddamned thorn hunters).

# ? Mar 17, 2017 21:33

Scaramouche: Mar 26, 2001; SPACE FACE! SPACE FACE!

Thug Lessons posted:

I like the new division of species into Simple, Intermediate and Advanced, but some of the classification is wonky, like how VS is listed as advanced but Gh is simple. VS has low HP and healing potential but just completely shits on everything, whereas ghoul is IMO one of the harder species to actually win with because of their crappy apts. The only logic I can see is ironically an advanced player logic that prioritizes early-game survival over all else, whereas those classifications should be there to help new players.

Yeah I think I posted this earlier when I first used a VS and then ascended three pretty quickly. Bite + Regen + Spirit can be a nasty mix after they're all online, and the magic drain shut down the pan lords pretty easy in extended too.

# ? Mar 18, 2017 00:44

weirdly chilly pussy: Oct 6, 2007

Protip: check your magic resistance before heading down the slime pits.

# ? Mar 18, 2017 12:09

weirdly chilly pussy: Oct 6, 2007

I'm playing a formicid of zin and it's majorly hosed up that there's now no way to cure muts apart from the one-time ability zin offers or accepting penance for drinking a potion of mut.

# ? Mar 19, 2017 14:27

dpeg: Jul 18, 2008; As far as I see it, you should never go to SA to look out for useful feedback or even interesting ideas; I certainly don't

weirdly chilly pussy posted:

I'm playing a formicid of zin and it's majorly hosed up that there's now no way to cure muts apart from the one-time ability zin offers or accepting penance for drinking a potion of mut.

That's a good point. I am actually not sure if Zin has been considered when the mutating potions have been changed!

# ? Mar 19, 2017 14:30

Yngwie Mangosteen: Aug 23, 2007

changelong: Zin removed.

# ? Mar 19, 2017 15:17

Chas McGill: Oct 29, 2010; loves Fat Philippe

Zin...more like Zzz

# ? Mar 19, 2017 16:00

Sojenus: Dec 28, 2008

rip fun version of wu jian, 2017-2017, sacrificed on the altar of tab

With no reward for paying extra attention to weave through crowds or set up jumps it's back to slamming tab with Qazlal and an axe. It was by far the most engaged I ever was with playing the game rather than the usual descent into a haze of o-tab, and after the change it's not actively bad, but there's a real feeling of "eh why bother" now. Oh well.

Time to code up a crab race that inexplicably has innate martial powers.

# ? Mar 19, 2017 16:03

Decrepus: May 21, 2008; In the end, his dominion did not touch a single poster.

Your crustaceous heritage asserts itself! Your claw twists and deforms.

# ? Mar 19, 2017 16:09

Chas McGill: Oct 29, 2010; loves Fat Philippe

Sojenus posted:

rip fun version of wu jian, 2017-2017, sacrificed on the altar of tab

With no reward for paying extra attention to weave through crowds or set up jumps it's back to slamming tab with Qazlal and an axe. It was by far the most engaged I ever was with playing the game rather than the usual descent into a haze of o-tab, and after the change it's not actively bad, but there's a real feeling of "eh why bother" now. Oh well.

Time to code up a crab race that inexplicably has innate martial powers.

Aw man, they changed it? I was honestly having the most fun in a while with a melee character...

# ? Mar 19, 2017 16:12

Sojenus: Dec 28, 2008

Chas McGill posted:

Aw man, they changed it? I was honestly having the most fun in a while with a melee character...

Removed the slow effect and made it so wall jumps require a target to work.

# ? Mar 19, 2017 16:13

Chas McGill: Oct 29, 2010; loves Fat Philippe

It did seem quite overpowered, but I was also running a ridiculous frogman with great equipment. So long as you can dance around folk and attack them repeatedly it's still interesting, I guess.

# ? Mar 19, 2017 16:15

weirdly chilly pussy: Oct 6, 2007

Decrepus posted:

Your crustaceous heritage asserts itself! Your claw twists and deforms.

# ? Mar 19, 2017 16:35

Mr. Prokosch: Feb 14, 2012; Behold My Magnificence!

Sojenus posted:

Removed the slow effect and made it so wall jumps require a target to work.

Jesus. Well that makes a good, fun, God that changed how you play melee for the better into complete horseshit. Back to tablord.

# ? Mar 19, 2017 17:45

dpeg: Jul 18, 2008; As far as I see it, you should never go to SA to look out for useful feedback or even interesting ideas; I certainly don't

It's good to see this thread back at its best!

If, however, you want to vent more than frustration and, perhaps, steer the god's design in a direction you like better, then I have some hints: first, stop the "it was so good, now it's so bad, won't play ever again" show. This achieves literally nothing. Second, if you think the walljump nerf went wrong, then try to understand why developers think some clamp on walljumps was necessary. And then come up and promote a better.

(Disclaimer: I had nothing to do with any form of WJC, except that I drew the little pictures in the ^ screen.)

Personally, I've lobbied for getting WJC into trunk. I'm happy it's there, and I think it'll make a beautiful god in some stable version. However, I've also said to SteelNeuron since I started playing the god that unlimited free walljumps are problematic. (I'm the one with the anti-luring crusade, so in my eyes free walljumps are like Luring^2plusDeluxe.) There are definitely other ways how walljumps can be held in check, I believe that the current one was taken because (a) it's simple to explain and to code, and (b) fits with (one version) of the theme.

# ? Mar 19, 2017 18:41

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# ? May 16, 2024 00:59

apple: May 18, 2003; Jose in the club wearing orange suspenders

I think it's problematic that while the god was OP the changes strictly went against what the creator wanted. He wasn't unwilling to make the god more in-line with Crawl's philosophy either and he knows changes were needed; unfortunately before another answer was found the god took on a different vision.

Judging from SteelNeuron's response I think he doesn't have the time/energy to pull back in the direction he envisioned, and I think these kind of commits give off the message that the people doing the merges to trunk have their minds made up already.

Once I try WJC again I can give feedback, but I also wanted to give feedback on the change itself.

# ? Mar 19, 2017 18:53

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