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Big Mad Drongo posted:-What should I train next? Blade Hands and Ice Form are both perfectly castable, so I think I'm going to focus on defense and some sort of range attack next. More fighting would be very nice, as well as more unarmed and more dodging. Lair is too early for a transmuter to worry about ranged options, since you're still not rock solid in melee. Throwing is a good choice if shoals is in your game, otherwise take your pick, all the forms of ranged combat have something to recommend them, though throwing is generally the "best" if you have a large supply of branded javelins. The best way to handle open areas as a Chei character is to play well. I know that's not very helpful, but that's the only advice I can give. Explore carefully so that you're never exposed with unexplored territory on many sides. Always have a path back to cover that lets you fight enemies one or two at a time, and explore so that you have the turns to take it as soon as you see something nasty. Always retreat before you engage so that you only pull a few enemies at once. You've passed the point of the game at which Chei is directly going to kill you, but you're still extremely vulnerable and need to play super cautiously, especially without access to teleportation. Don't auto explore if you can resist it until you can mash a few death yaks without breaking a sweat.
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Dec 25, 2015 19:21
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I'd use the vampiric scimitar. A scimitar is a decent enough base type and vampiric is a really good brand. I don't know where you are in the game at this point, but I assume you're too early for antimagic to be all that useful. The venom branded randart is not bad either; that +6 to dex could give you a nice chunk of EV if you have decent dodging, but venom is not nearly as useful as vampiric especially if you've found a lot of enchant weapon scrolls and don't mind dumping a few into the scimitar. You'll want to upgrade to a demonblade or double sword eventually, but the vampiric scimitar could carry you through the whole game, even if you'd feel a little weak in Zot.
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Dec 26, 2015 11:56
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I don't think it's a good idea to go straight for battlesphere with TeCj. You don't have the charms aptitude to make it worth it. Focusing entirely on conjurations will add power to searing ray, which should be your main early game nuke, until you have enough MP and spellpower to use mystic blast reliably. After you can count on mystic blast to take out a dangerous enemy by itself, then I'd start working on battlesphere. You can absolutely pick up fulminant prism on the way. It's a great spell. I tend to emphasize it more on characters that are invested heavily in hexes and need a serious early-mid game nuke, but it does great work on any character that can cast it at decent power. Tengu really benefit from investing heavily in a few schools and don't work as well if you spread your xp out across several types of spells. They are tend to be strongest as the old "reaver" type of character, with a strong focus on conjurations and one elemental school (air if you have chain lighting or CBL with rElec, else fire or ice depending on what you find) mixed with melee and without serious investment in utility magic. Deep elves are the caster race you want if you want to blow everything up with battlesphere and fulminant prism before D: 6 then be able to cast every utility spell, sling serious conjurations and shoot a longbow at mindelay by lair branches (and explode instantly if something so much as looks at you).
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Dec 29, 2015 18:21
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Scaramouche posted:Thanks for the advice so far guys. I'll take the Strength=Constrict and the Chei stuff into account. Indeed shields are definitely worth it for an octopode, especially if you're going unarmed. They are the only species that doesn't lose the offhand attack, so definitely use a buckler. You don't have to get it up to 4-5 shields right away, but if you find one, you should use it. Be careful spreading your skills out too much, what you've done is probably a good idea, but you really need fighting and dodging to survive and unarmed heavily rewards deep investment. Okawaru is helping you out here a lot with heroism, but if you go Chei, I wouldn't recommend doing that. You definitely want very high dodging on Chei characters to leverage your excellent dex. I will second OpIE as a good "melee" start for an octopode. It's the only way to actually have AC in the early game. Op still sucks no matter what in the early game, but IE is one of the strongest backgrounds to begin with and helps cover your biggest weakness. OpIE of Chei is good fun, but I recommend holding off on worshiping Chei until D: 7 or so. An early altar will probably get you killed by the first ogre you see. Don't switch weapon types! If you've already trained far into unarmed, stay with unarmed. The only reason to switch would be if you found a ridiculous +13 bardiche of speed or something and even then more for the novelty of using it than the fact that it would be optimal play. A weapon skill will do absolutely nothing for you, you'll do more damage in the long run with unarmed anyway, and you'll start doing a whole lot more as soon as you get some decent transmutations. As far as stats go, I'd say dex is better with Oka because heroism gives you high dodging, which benefits from high dex. If you go Chei, your dex will be high enough to hit the point of diminishing returns (24 dex), so str is arguably better. It's certainly more fun. The best octopode is one that worships Chei, wears a bunch of +str rings and raises str every time, then casts dragon form. Maximum overkill. You will one shot orbs of fire, greater mummies and hell sentinels with ease. Stealth has diminishing returns in effectiveness relative to the cost of investment. 11 stealth is "enough" for most characters. More stealth is helpful, but probably not worth it most of the time.
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Jan 1, 2016 07:06
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Yeah, freeze is the most mana efficient level one spell unless you're double zapping groups of enemies with shock, which is dangerous play in itself, or kiting everything to death with sting, which is boring as hell. Throw icicle is also a rock solid single target nuke from the time you can cast it until the mid-late game. It's incredibly efficient and is probably the single most reliable attack spell in any of the starting books. That said, I agree IE doesn't play best as a straight blaster, it's best for hybrids. But I don't think pure blaster is really the best way to play a caster anyway. Being able to take a hit and deal damage without using MP makes being a caster a lot more enjoyable as well as much safer.
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Jan 4, 2016 17:57
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I agree with the change to shadow creatures, since almost anyone could cast it pretty easily and if you're of a HAMmy disposition, you could kill almost anything with just that spell. I don't like the change to monstrous menagerie. Yes, it's a really good spell, but I agree that this is focusing too much on game balance in a very niche case. It was fine for it to be the summonings equivalent of Parrow. Especially so considering how much more busy work summonings require than conjurations anyway. I do think that summonings has a strong flavor of HAM. The spells that just summon a monster to fight for you are very strong if you do a bunch of really boring and fiddly stuff to make them work. I still really like the school, but mostly because of the actually fun and interesting spells in it like summon forest, malign gateway, and dragon's call or the summons that have strong utility like mana vipers, haunt or summon horrible things.
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Jan 6, 2016 05:00
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Dee Ehm posted:I can accept that summoning is powerful but I find it kinda unattractive. I've played around with Ice Beast / Mana Viper / Malign Gateway, and space tentacles were fun for a character already heavy into translocations, but I sort of have a hard time seeing why I should branch into them or focus on them when they split off my experience. They can't hold their own, exactly, but they can deal a lot of damage if you make sure they aren't taking much in return. It costs you only 7 (now) MP to get something that does enough damage to kill a couple enemies, so the value is very good. But you have to be willing to endure the tedium associated with a poor interface and obscure AI mechanics. If you're not patient enough, or you're not good at using summons, or both (me), half the time your summons get murdered instantly or sit around doing nothing. There are all kinds of fiddly things you have to do to get your summons to attack enemies while not individually taking too much damage in return and I find that makes most "summon a monster" summons not worth it unless you're really invested in that particular play style. I liked monstrous menagerie because you could learn it on a melee guy and cast it without caring about whether your harpies got eaten and it would still contribute to most fights just because it was so drat strong. I understand the argument for raising the spell level, especially the argument that it was significantly stronger, in an absolute sense, at level 6 than summon hydra is at level 7, but it does mean that I probably won't cast it again in the future unless I've got spell slots to burn and am already casting a high level summon that isn't a pain to use, like malign gateway. Of course, I know some people like Crawl's summoning play style, which is a fact I can understand only as much as I can understand that some people are republicans, but could never possibly comprehend why. I've spectated a couple of gammafunk's countless HESus, so I don't expect much sympathy to my argument from that quarter.
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Jan 6, 2016 11:29
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Pure blasters are so dependent on MP that even if you have three sources of mp restoration (vehumet, staff of energy, sublimation), you can still pretty easily get yourself into a situation in which you're screwed if you're careless and unlucky. Couple that with paper thin defenses and blasters can end up really struggling when they run into unexpectedly difficult fights. What's more, you can blast your way through a three rune game pretty easily with no more than 16 in your primary spell schools, at which point being able to handle a wide variety of situations and being less reliant on things always going your way in a fight is probably a better path toward consistent survival than level 9 spells, which push you towards a dangerous play style in which you can blow through your mp very quickly while also calling a whole bunch of attention to your position when you're playing a character that has little staying power in a prolonged fight. Heavily increasing returns on experience needed to progress in levels makes spreading your xp out across multiple skills very rewarding if you have a good sense of what you're aiming for. A good hybrid isn't a half strength fighter and a half strength caster, it's 75%/75% and has access to tools that aren't available to either "pure" build.
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Jan 8, 2016 15:24
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Unimpressed posted:So, much to my astonishment, my GrEE isn't dead yet. I've reached XL25 and about to go into V5, but I've got some armour options I'd like to ask about. I have access to a fire dragon hide, a quicksilver hide, a storm dragon armour and my currently worn Archmagi robe. I'm firmly on the side of megane in regards to hybridizing rather than going for level nine spells. Playing a pure blaster is a perfectly viable play style, but it's definitely high risk, high reward in a game all about minimizing risk. The two builds tend to even out once you get your level 9 spell online, but there is a long and dangerous period during which you're pouring experience into skills that give fairly small returns meanwhile the dungeon is getting significantly more dangerous around you. If you start to train defense and melee at the point a blaster would start focusing on their top nuke, you'll be a lot safer in the short term and about as strong in the long term as long as you favor a fairly conservative play style (which you should if you want to actually win the game). Do note that shatter and tornado are a lot more practical than firestorm and glaciate. You save a whole lot of experience because they're only one school. On your character, I would put a little more into earth at this point to drop shatter below 10% and then focus on defense and evocations (and get staves up to 12). I will disagree with megane about the robe of the archmagi, however, especially on a gargoyle. I think AC in general tends to be slightly over-valued. No character needs AC to win the game, even if it is incredibly helpful, and a spell enhancer is a very significant boost to offense, which in turn extends your mp, which is at least as important as your hp. Gargoyles in particular work very well with robes or light armor because they have enough AC innately that shoring up EV is often a better decision focusing on more AC, regardless of the really good egos available on light armor. Edit: I've strongly recommended avoiding firestorm and glaciate in a couple of posts recently. I do think gunning for those spells increases the chance that you'll lose your character. But those spells are cool. It is absolutely worth it to learn firestorm in a three rune game for the sake of learning firestorm and blowing motherfuckers the gently caress up. Dropping the WMDs with glaciate never gets old. But I don't think it's the best strategy for consistently winning games. Heithinn Grasida fucked around with this message at 14:51 on Jan 14, 2016 |
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Jan 14, 2016 14:46
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Spoggerific posted:I'm playing an HESk of Ashenzari, and I've cleared Orc and Lair. I've noticed that my current weapon, a short sword of speed, is starting to fall behind - even though each swing only takes 0.2 turns while hasted (I have haste castable at 8% failure), I get a lot of "you hit the X but do no damage" messages. The only other good short blade I've found is a vampiric rapier - should I switch to that, or should I consider switching to longblades since I have both crosstraining and Ashenzari's skill reassignment? My current base short blades skill is 17.4. I unfortunately haven't found any good longblades, either - my only choices there are unenchanted great swords. You should definitely switch to longblades. Shortblades aren't ideal for toe-to-toe fighting like you're trying to do. In my opinion, the HE +2 aptitude in SB is there to make a light, early investment in the skill really cheap so you can just switch to LB later without hurting too much. The book of ice is fantastic, and HE^Ash is so good for taking advantage of it. Freezing cloud is the most important spell in there for you. Getting that will also let you cast bolt of cold, which is plain, but solid and reliable ranged damage. Ozo's refrigeration is great, but you need 2 levels of cold resistance minimum to make it work and you also want to be casting it at very high power. I usually don't learn it, but when you find the right stuff to make it work, a really solid refrigerator build is just about the strongest character possible for a large chunk of the game. HE is actually okay at necromancy in spite of the -2. You still have high int and good spellcasting on a character that's decent in melee. I wouldn't try to go for necronomicon stuff, though unless you're solid everywhere else and are getting ready for extended. It's a lot of investment for spells that won't help you kill things faster. But taking death channel and simulacrum, possibly supported by agony or bolt of draining if you don't pick up other ranged attacks, works very well on a HE^Ash.
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Jan 14, 2016 15:07
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Darox posted:Defenses make sense, and I don't think everyone should give up defense to be the most blasty blaster they can be, but I still don't get the melee thing. You already have a source of damage. Why weaken your growth to invest in a second one? If you're seriously at a point in the late game where you are overwhelmed and your mana dries up, that's the kind of fight you wouldn't take in melee anyway. Retreat and get more mana, or use one of several mana restoration sources. If I had all the level 9 spells and a full set of all the good weapons at their respective peaks, 9/10 times I'm gonna nuke everything that comes my way, and the times I use the weapon it'll often just be because tab is the lazier option. (e: "Fighting a demon lord while using antimagic brand" is basically the best argument for weapon superiority over spells, but that's a pretty small niche) Because min delay on a demon whip or enhancer staff is dirt cheap. It costs less to go from 0 to 12 in staves than it does from 22-23 in a spell school. Going from 22-23 makes your level 9 spell more reliable, which is huge, admittedly, but otherwise has little impact, but 12 in staves or M&F is enough to kill almost any enemy in the game one-on-one without the need for MP, if supported by a good weapon. If you are strong enough in melee to hold your own reliably, you can leave your primary casting skills at under 20, which will also allow you to have more defense, HP and possible more utility magic, depending on your character. Enhancer staves also require evocations, but that gets you a gigantic bag of tricks all by itself, including the ability to better regenerate MP when you need it, so it's hardly ever a waste to invest XP there. Obviously, this game supports a wide variety of play styles and I guess you feel more comfortable with very offense focused casters. That's a fun and potentially very rewarding way to play the game. But, probably as a cumulative result of countless small decisions, many people run into trouble with casters drawing more attention than they can handle then running out of MP, even with level nine spells and even with Vehumet. Unless you both know what you're doing and are good at a very aggressive play style with your blasters, I think that the hybrid approach is a more reliable way to win the game. Rushing fire storm is not only likely to get you killed from running out of MP after your 6th fireball in lair branches, it also makes you more vulnerable in zot or slime or on V: 5 when casually you blow up one group of enemies only to be ambushed by the next. The ability to soften or eliminate priority targets with powerful spells then clean up in melee may not be as flashy as the ability to blow every one up at once, but it leaves you more options for when combat rolls, terrain or your own mistakes put you in a bad position.
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Jan 14, 2016 16:55
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That's the way I use them, too. Bolt does a good bit more damage, but can miss (although it's pretty accurate and rarely misses at high power), whereas fireball never misses, but is noisy and has issues against tough targets.
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Jan 17, 2016 15:31
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Stik3 posted:Just started playing this game a couple of hours ago, having lots of fun so far. Online lets you watch other players and lets other players watch you, which can be a great way to learn about the game. It also saves all your games and statistics on a personal page so you can see your high scores and, once you get there, win rate, streaks, etc. It's really great if you play the game a lot. Fighting other player's ghosts is just a nice "bonus" that means you can run into super nasty enemies that have unexpected abilities. Some general tips: most people find melee easier to handle to start with. Berserker is pretty much universally acknowledged as the strongest start in the game, so Minotaur or Gargoyle berserker is probably the easiest way to learn. If that's not your thing (I found casters easier at first and some other people do too), conjuror and fire elementalist are good starts if you want to blast things; ice elementalist and wizard are good starts if you want to fight in melee and occasionally blast things. Actual ranged weapon starts are more advanced because you won't have a reliable supply of ammunition until a good bit into the game, so you need to know which enemies warrant the use of your ranged weapon and which you can safely fight with your crappy melee abilities. Troll hunter, however, can be a really strong and straightforward start because your ranged attacks, while very limited, are strong even with minimal investment, you'll never find a better weapon than your claws and those don't require a huge investment to be effective against early game enemies either. If you make it to an altar, worship Okawaru and use heroism in every situation that appears even slightly dangerous. Also, run away from player ghosts in the early game. Sometimes you'll be able to kill them, but very often you won't. It's usually just not worth it. dpeg posted:This is the most solid description for Charms I've seen. Spells are much harder to get right than consumables, so I definitely see where Megane is coming from. I think this is a "fun is not a design goal" type decision that favors some esoteric design aesthetic over what players actually enjoy when they play the game. Pretty much every RPG has spells that you can cast to make yourself more powerful because doing so is fun. Having magic you can use to give yourself a passive advantage in battle through bigger numbers or extended resources is satisfying in a different way than consumables because expending tactical resources feels clever and expending strategic resources feels punishing. The effect is psychological, rather than logical, and can't be denied or explained away. If you want to try and say that buffs aren't fun, I would say the burden of proof is on you, and it's you against pretty much everyone else who makes and plays video games. Everyone can agree that buffs are flawed in Crawl, and removing them might makes sense from a certain perspective, but I think it's hard to argue that doing so won't make the game less fun to play for the vast majority of players. Most RPGs struggle with the implementation of buff spells, so it's certainly not an easy problem to solve, but actually attempting to find a solution, even if imperfect, is better than simply excising a significant and rewarding dimension of the gameplay.
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Jan 24, 2016 05:15
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megane posted:Every RPG has buff spells, and they're usually awful I respect your right to your opinion, but I'd like to point out that Crawl follows an awful, outdated style of buff design that requires constant refreshing of buffs. Other RPGs handle buffs in ways that make them tactically or strategically interesting, through limiting them only to combat, making them function as sustained abilities with a constant downside, or implementing other systems that work very well in their specific environment (you're a monster with no soul if you don't like Song in Sil, and I say that as someone who doesn't particularly like Sil). Buffs as a subject of game design in general comprises such a wide range of design styles that to hate all of them seems wantonly arbitrary. Obviously, none of the systems I mentioned above would fit in perfectly with Crawl, and most of them exist in games that were designed from the ground up with the buff system in mind. It may not be possible to find an excellent way to handle buffs in Crawl, and it certainly won't be possible to implement one all at once. But I do think limiting the ability to temporarily improve your characters combat power to consumables would change the game in both a fundamental, and quite negative way. Using consumables is fun and enjoyable in a different way than expending tactical resources like MP and the game should have both options available to players. Clearly there are good and well designed buffs like spectral weapon and, to a lesser extent, song of slaying, and there are also boring buffs like Ozo's armor, that gives an extremely powerful and important tool to light armor characters, but operates in a very boring way. It goes without saying that well designed buffs are preferable to badly designed buffs and that the badly designed buffs have been in desperate need of reform for years. But removing buffs as abilities that characters can invest XP into in order to use tactical resources to make themselves stronger would leave a gaping hole in the game's mechanics.
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Jan 24, 2016 08:10
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megane posted:Words I understand where you're coming from, but I don't think "remove it" is always the best solution to bad things, especially things that are controversially, rather than incontrovertibly, bad. Crawl's development does have that sort of culture, sometimes for better and sometimes for worse. But this case is much more extreme than singularity (  ) or flight or whatever. I would rather have bad buffs than no buffs because I think they fill an important design space and because I like using them. I'm sure I'm very far from the only person who feels that way. Aside from my own preferences, ozo's armor et al., even if they are unarguably boring in their execution, are very interesting in their function. They greatly diversify the types of characters that can regularly and safely engage in melee combat. Without them, there would be a much sharper divide between casters and melee, and that would be to the game's detriment. One of the great strengths of Crawl, in my opinion, is that nearly any combination of abilities can very successful if you play the game well. That wouldn't be impossible without those defensive buffs, they certainly aren't the cornerstone of the success of hybrid builds, but they do make a very significant difference. Without them it would be a lot harder and riskier to play generalist characters as opposed to specialists. The fact that a character who's casting bolt of cold and freezing cloud has much easier access to ozo's armor and deflect missiles makes the game better, even if the way that ozo's armor and deflect missiles work as spells in themselves isn't ideal.
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Jan 24, 2016 10:04
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Trog and Okawaru are the most straightforward gods for melee characters. Trog won't let you cast magic, but lets you go berserk, which is extremely strong early on, gives you lots of weapons, meaning you'll almost certainly find the best weapon of your chosen type eventually, and gives you a powerful regeneration and magic resistance buff as well as a strong summon. Okawaru lets you boost all your combat skills at a very low piety cost, which is good for everyone, but is excellent for certain weapons or attack styles that require high skill investment to be effective since you can save loads of experience by not training all the way to the point of diminishing returns, but rather just using heroism when you need more damage. It also gives you the ability to attack super fast at a high piety cost, which is great, especially since it doesn't have the downside of berserk. It will also give you weapons and armor, but most of its gifts will be ridiculous and useless crap. You still can probably count on a top-tier weapon, just not as quickly or reliably as with Trog, and the weapons you get will be slightly weaker. Also, very importantly, Okawaru doesn't block magic use, so late game characters can pick up some powerful, low level buffs and utility spells. Trog is typically considered the strongest god overall because it's strongest early. The only reason berserker is so good is because it starts with Trog and enough piety to berserk. Okawaru is probably better in the late game once you have your ideal weapon, you have XP to spare for learning magic and berserk isn't so useful, but the late game is much, much easier than the early game. But that doesn't mean you have to use those two! Experimentation is also a good way to learn the game, and you might end up feeling more comfortable with Makhleb or Yredelmnul or even Fedhas on your melee guy. Or with a caster of Vehumet or Kiku.
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Jan 24, 2016 13:19
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I know it's too late, but I'll offer some advice on why you felt so weak even on a decent character. You were playing your HESk basically like a MfSk with a sword. It's no surprise that it would be weaker since Mf is more robust and has considerably better melee aptitudes. To do well with HE hybrids, you need to take advantage of the high int and spellcasting to get a wide variety of utility spells online that would be impractical for other characters. For example, You had haste, which I assume you found in the book of enchantments, but died to deep elves that could have easily been shut down with silence. I don't know what other spells you had, but picking a direction and getting some ranged attacks and utility magic out of it would have made your character much stronger, even as it made your melee weaker. Ice magic could have gotten you metabolic englaciation, the ice defense buffs (ozo's +troll leather is far better than mottled dragon armor), refrigeration, bolt of cold, etc. Necromancy would have given you all kind of cool toys. Same with summonings. Air magic for silence and cloud spells and CBL if you found it, since you had rElec. You're practically guaranteed to find spellbooks that can give really good support to a melee character in some way, and HE is in the best position to use them while still remaining competent in melee. That brings in the next point, how do you manage to be competent in melee and train magic at the same time? Normally, I'd recommend Ashenzari (I'm a broken record there, though), but with Okawaru, the answer is heroism. You only used Heroism twice, which means you almost might as well have been playing without a god. Leaving your melee skills much lower and relying on heroism to supplement them when needed would have meant you could get a bunch of very powerful and helpful support magic online. Using a one handed weapon and a buckler might have helped to that end, as well. tl;dr: MfSk worships Oka, learns basic spells and then is a melee character. HESk worships Ash (or Kiku for a weird choice) and learns a bunch of magic and fights in melee after magic has made it safe to do so. If you worship Oka, use Heroism!
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Feb 3, 2016 04:28
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I fully agree that HE is weak early and HESk is especially bad, but it does get a lot better if you play them well. You're correct, their melee aptitudes aren't all that great and their defenses are poor until you have enough dodging to leverage your high dex and have either medium armor or ozo's. Once you do, your defenses are better than average, but your HP is still low. But that was my whole point. HE is a weak melee species, so don't be surprised if you play one as a straight melee character and they're weak. They're extremely strong in the mid game as hybrids, though, if you focus harder on the magic aspect of your character than you would for other hybrids. As you discovered, HESk is actually really bad, in spite of what it might appear, because HE is weak early and Skald is also a very tough start. HEIE, as you mentioned, or HEWz are much better if you want to be a hybrid. IE and Wz are better hybrid starts for any species than Sk, but are doubly so for HE. HEWz^Ash is possibly my favorite overall combo just because it has so many options.
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Feb 3, 2016 07:26
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Some Japanese player told me they're the strongest combo!
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Feb 3, 2016 08:45
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I haven't played Sif Muna all that much, but my opinion is it's pretty good if you want to emphasize casting a wide variety of magic as opposed to just blasting things. I assume that if you're starting as a FE, you mostly want to blast things, so Vehumet is probably better. Certainly Vehumet is more straightforward. But if you want to be an rear end in a top hat finger-waggling wizard with a million tricks, DE^Sif is a nice choice. Focusing on necromancy and summons, then training bows and using portal projectile to shoot things from behind your wall of meat could be one fun path to take. With channeling, you'll never run out of meatshields or MP for portal projectile. Mystery Prize posted:So I have a fairly promising OgCK going: I'm pretty sure a GSC will be better than skullcrusher. Electrocution isn't ideal, but it's still not a bad brand. The advantage of skullcrusher is that it will deal really solid damage at a significantly lower skill investment, so if you'd rather pump throwing and defenses than getting M&F into the 20s, a regular giant club might be a better choice. Disintegration should work to dig the walls in Slime. Do you have that?
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Feb 4, 2016 11:42
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I guess I could try Crypt or the rest of the depths?
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Only in about 1/5 games with a caster do I get pretty much all the spells that I want from floorgod, and only in about 1/10 games is it "early enough to be important". I very often feel a fairly major lack, and while I agree that Sif's gifts start too late and that its piety gain mechanics are Not Much Fun, the gifting typically makes a significant difference for your character if you're playing at all the way you should be playing a Sif character. From your posts, you obviously really like heavily offense oriented blasters, which is fine, but that is far from the only way to play a caster and by no means is it undeniably the strongest or safest way either. I do think that Vehumet is overall better than Sif, but you barely allow that Sif has any value at all, which is just not true unless you're hyper focused on developing a specific type of build.
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Feb 4, 2016 14:13
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Two people have already addressed this clearly and thoroughly, but I'll add that per experience point invested, you might well be getting better returns on damage, not to mention defense, by training fighting at this point rather than axes.
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Feb 4, 2016 15:47
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I haven't tested it myself, but I've read posts saying Skullcrusher does less damage per aut than a +9 branded GSC, but the point about overkill is a good one. It's also simply advantageous to attack faster, especially with a weapon that has a decent chance to kill weak enemies in one or two hits.
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Feb 4, 2016 16:32
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Internet Kraken posted:Cool, another pointless nerf because devs can't come up with ways to improve spells instead of removing them. That's a bunch of AC lost for statue form users. It was a pointless spell anyway after it lost its statue form synergy. I agree it is somewhat an unneeded nerf to statue form, but the better way to handle that would be to simply buff the AC of statue form. This is one spell removal I fully agree with for the reasons noted in the commit. The change to passwall is also great. The song of slaying buff is cool. I liked the spell already, but it was in need of improvement.
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Feb 5, 2016 05:04
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the Orb of Zot posted:
Fine as long as you can turn it back off after casting it. It's certainly not the solution I would choose, but I suppose it improves the spell.
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Feb 7, 2016 04:50
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I just finished my first .18 character. Yet another DEAM, my favorite bad combo. Here are some thoughts, I don't know how other people feel about these things: -The wand of iceblast is still a little weak. I understand the motivation to change wands, but I wish iceblast and lightning bolt were more useable. The reason people didn't use lightning bolt and fireball before wasn't because they were overshadowed by fire and cold, rather that fire and cold were just strong enough to be worth using, while lightning bolt and fireball simply weren't. I carried around a wand of iceblast in the early game through parts of lair and zapped it a few times, and regretted doing so each time. Maybe just bad luck on my part. I didn't use the wand of acid all that much because I didn't find one until later, but it seemed more worthwhile. Iceblast doesn't need a large buff, but it and lightning bolt should do a little more damage or just be removed outright. -Arcane marksman is still incredibly weak, but Gell's Gravitas is a little better. It still doesn't do much damage, but it's a major step up from doing nothing at all and it's nice for sucking enemies into clouds or re-positioning enemies to make them easier to hit. If the stars align just right, you can pull off fun combos with it and inner flame, where you blow someone up, then inner flame someone else, suck them into the flame cloud and make them blow up too for double the carnage. Both spells are still much too situational for the book of debilitation to feel like a complete starting book, though. -Yara's Violent Unraveling is great. I didn't learn it until around elf: 3, and only really used it to strip repel/deflect missiles off of annoying enemies, but I regretted dropping it even after I had Tornado. I imagine I will be able to use it much more effectively in the future. -To combine those two previous points, I suggest adding Yara's to the AM starting book, possibly in place of Leda's liquefaction, which, while not entirely useless, is pretty close and is only helpful in occasionally letting you take less damage in a fight you would already win. I don't think Yara's would be unbalanced, since it requires pretty substantial investment to cast, and it would give the class a way to deal reliable AoE damage in the mid game. -The new Elf is really good. I like all the enemies there a lot now. Each fight feels fairly meaningful because every enemy can potentially do something dangerous without being overwhelming (until elf: 3, of course). The changes to elf: 3 didn't impact me at all, because I never really cheesed it to begin with. -The new amulets are cool. I wore MP regen for most of the game, which was very powerful for my character, switched to harm for a little while, which was fun, but didn't seem worth it, especially compared to MP regen, then found a ridiculous randart amulet of regen in depths and wore that for the rest of the game. -Song of slaying is much better now. It's still situational and it's hard to find the right time to use it. I think, ideally, it would be much noisier, but last even longer. But when it works, it works very well. A reliable +9 slaying in lair branch ends is no joke. However, I'm pretty unclear about what counts towards it. Tornado and Gell's did, chain lightning and Parrow didn't, I think ball lightning did. It's very unclear. -How many cMut potions are people finding now? I found three over the course of the game, which was just enough, but extended would have been a major hassle if I felt any inclination to do it. -What exactly are the proposed changes to charms? Other than just removing them all, of course. I'm apprehensive that the devs will go mad with power and mess up my favorite character archetype. I do think the way Crawl handles buffs is outdated and needlessly cumbersome, but the problems aren't nearly bad enough as to require such a radical solution as just removing all buffs entirely! -All in all, .18 is has a bunch of really cool stuff! I like it a lot.
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Feb 7, 2016 06:33
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IE will still be very good without condensation shield. It makes a difference, and losing it hurts, but it was also a marginally useful effect that required a lot of annoyance to maintain. I'll miss the spell more on dragonform characters, honestly. Move metabolic englaciation from the book of ice to the book of frost? Then someone, I think Dpeg, suggested an ice spell to replace ozo's armor that decreases an enemy's damage. Make that work in some limited AoE with a duration dependent on monster HD and use it to replace Ozo's armor. Then IE has to pick up some hexes, if they want to be a hybrid, but remains a very powerful start.
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Feb 8, 2016 03:06
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Some background has to be the strongest, it's impossible for them all to be perfectly balanced. I don't think IE is necessarily second strongest after Be, I rate Wz as slightly better, though starting with ozo's armor makes IE quite tempting since the spell only gets more useful as the game goes on. Assassin is also a really strong start, in my opinion, and possibly better than IE, since you start with the ultimate early game weapon. At any rate, I don't think anyone could consider IE weak, since freeze, ozo's armor, throw icicle and summon ice beast are all really, really good. If I recall correctly, condensation shield was broken or useless for quite some time and no one even noticed the difference. I do like that the best book starts are the ones that are the most flexible and the ones that can be taken in more than one direction. I strongly hope that is preserved. If IE becomes a blaster background, I will be very sad.
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Feb 8, 2016 05:52
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kaschei posted:BigFactory, one big reason no one rests to recharge evocables is that their recharge is experience-based. So why not make buffs work in the same way? They don't dispel with time, rather in a similar way to rmsl/dmsl ozo's with fire damage, but after the buff has broken, you need to kill a certain number of monsters or gain a certain amount of experience to restore it. I read BigFactory's post, thought of the same response as you made, felt surprised that no one had ever proposed an XP based buff cooldown, then had to talk on the phone for a while so I couldn't reply. Darox posted:Basically buffs are better if you can't cast them with little/no investment, or they are low level but become obsolete later. I haven't seen anyone complain about shroud, even though it's like stoneskin or etc, because it's so low impact once you're into lair or beyond. It mostly just makes sure Skalds don't fall over dead every time they meet an adder. I agree with your whole post. Except for this one point. I hate shroud, I find it one of the most annoying buffs, because it doesn't make any significant strategic changes in the game and the tactical cost of using it is mere annoyance. It is an important spell for warpers and skalds, but it's also one of the buffs I wouldn't be sad to see gone, as long as some solution were found to make those two very weak backgrounds not become even weaker.
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Feb 10, 2016 15:19
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Darox posted:That's the strategic part of Oz that people don't mention; to run Oz you need light armour and an investment in the ice & charms schools. Sorry to respond twice to the same post. Actually, I'm pretty sure Pleasing Fungus has brought up this very point several times here. I've also mentioned it, perhaps rather obliquely, as well. I don't think all the devs are on a major "buffs as a concept in every possible iteration suck" kick, and the buffs that have been eliminated are undeniable the most offensive ones, even if I agree with what other people have posted when they say that perhaps this is not an effective, long-term solution to the perceived problem. I never do orc before lair just because of habit -- I practically never die in lair anyway at this point and I know just what I need to do to complete it anyway. But my impression of this change is that it's made orc better. I was pretty annoyed in my last run that an orc warlord was within spitting distance of the orc 1 staircase, but I managed to dodge him and finish orc 2, then dodge him again on the way out. Perhaps orc 1 should be adjusted somewhat, but orc is still quite doable after lair even on a weak character.
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Feb 10, 2016 16:27
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I don't really like hugeorc cityblocks n poo poo, to be honest. That particular branch ending has always annoyed me because it takes about five times as long as any of the others.
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Feb 10, 2016 18:17
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Spray is pretty good, mystic blast is much better for single target damage, but dazzling spray does decent damage early on, costs less and the debuff can be very helpful if you know how to use it (either use it to enable stabs, or blind someone then run away, it will make it much harder for them to track you. It's not like confusion, where they're pretty much helpless, but it can still be used for escape as long as the thing you're trying to run from isn't already right next to you).
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Feb 12, 2016 12:13
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Basically that's true, but I wouldn't necessarily call it pessimism. For me, it's more a routine that I go through that I know increases my chances to win. I find that starting a fight with the mindset that you're going to run away, even if it's a fighting retreat that lets you eventually win, helps a lot. So, for me, it's not so much that, "I'm going to lose this fight, so I'd better run" as much as "running is part of winning this fight", even if occasionally "winning" means going up the stairs and not fighting the thing at all. I have a decent win rate, though, and still take a scorched earth approach to the dungeon, even though that's really not the ideal policy. Being conservative is a huge part of consistently winning, though. The ultimate point of gameplay is to minimize risks. Overly committing to that concept leads to not having much fun, so eat the purple if you want, but trying to avoid any situation where you leave things to being lucky is how you win.
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Feb 13, 2016 10:43
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I find the best way to improve my win rate is to not play demonspawn because every single drat one I start ends up with foul stench and I want some other drat mutations goddamnit! Suicide would improve my fun, but toughing it out might improve my win rate. What to do?
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Feb 13, 2016 15:41
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Yeah, Ds is really up there among my favorite species and I know stench isn't bad at all, I'm mostly complaining for the sake of complaining. I do think it's pretty boring in comparison to the really crazy amazing tier 2s like nightwalker, magic shield or powered by death, though. My real issue is that when I start feeling a little bored with crawl I'm always tempted to start scum Ds for ridiculous mutation combos like magic shield and powered by death together on a blaster mage. Then I'd get augmentation as my tier 3, floor god would give me the robe of vines so I'd regenerate something like 10 MP per turn and everything would explode forever.
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Feb 13, 2016 17:35
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Yeah, silence falls off dramatically in usefulness in extended except in tomb, which is the point of the game at which it is by far the most useful. That kind of thing is one reason I never play extended anymore except to occasionally maul everyone as a victory lap with a truly ridiculous character.
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Feb 17, 2016 10:10
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I think it's a fairly understandable mistake because the innate abilities of pan lords and hell lords are mostly identical to player spells. Of course, it's also the kind of mistake you only make once. Regardless, I generally dislike the fact that extended polarizes a lot abilities that were situational but good in the main game into either amazing or useless.
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Feb 17, 2016 11:20
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Nique posted:Been having a lot of fun with DsNe of Kiku and finally have a fairly promising one (cleared lair). If you've found a scroll of acquirement and haven't used it yet, acquire a weapon. It's weighted towards giving you a weapon type you haven't seen before, so while there's always the possibility it will give you a broad axe or a scythe or something else completely useless, the most likely "bad" case is that it gives you nice, branded great mace, which is not a bad case at all. If it does that, you are a two-handed character that focuses on melee more than magic and you eventually pain brand another great mace. Otherwise, you might get an evening star or a demon whip, in which case your question is answered. If all else fails, just pain brand whatever. Waiting for the perfect weapon isn't a good idea because the game gets easier as you go on and the brand will be relatively more useful early. The longer you wait to brand something, the less useful it will be to do so. If you have a morning star with high enchantment, consider branding that. Otherwise, a plain whip is probably best. But don't only choose based on the weapons you've found. You should also consider whether you plan to be more a melee character or a caster in the future. You can be a pure necromancer through most of the game with Kiku, but it will be a bitch in the late game. I think a hybrid is a much stronger choice. If you go for conjurations, a pain branded whip is a great side arm, but if you intend to mainly deal damage with a melee weapon, you're going to want something beefier. In that case, it might not be unreasonable to try holding out a little while for a great mace, since they're pretty common.
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Feb 19, 2016 15:07
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Nothing wrong with int on a melee character. It just means you can wear heavier armor and your spells will be more badass. Also mana shield is a ridiculously good mutation for blaster casters. Once it hits tier 3. If you stack a bunch of regen it's like you're passively channeling a staff of energy every turn. There's almost nothing else like it. Personally, I'd lean towards summoning at that point, since it's a really solid hybrid school that meshes well with necromancy. but I don't know what other stuff you have. You can't become a summoner if you don't have any books with summonings in them.LordSloth posted:Under a smaller section of circumstances, I'd also consider staves - in particular if I'd found any that complement a spellbook I've also found and wanted to use. It's a bit of a waste to pain brand a quarterstaff, especially if you stumble across a staff of death, but staves are a solid third or fourth choice. Polearms are my absolute top choice for any necromancer. Not only can you poke from behind your minions, a simple spear of pain is an incredibly solid weapon since it requires low skill investment, has reach and has .5 min delay. If you somehow luck out into a demon trident of pain, well that's the best possible weapon for a necromancer.
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Feb 19, 2016 15:48
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| # ¿ May 18, 2024 14:31 |
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You have quite a lot of hexes and evocations, neither of which is especially important to you in comparison to your core skills as a melee character. Evo is really not worth dumping a ton into unless you have some really good rods, and I wouldn't start pumping it until your core skills are better than they are now. That and switching from polearms to staves has left you relatively fragile, so you'll have to be careful in shoals. That said, you should be okay if you play carefully. -Things to do -- train fighting and armor and dodging! You really need more in all of those skills. -Wish for a lajatang really hard. Hopefully Okawaru will give you one. That quarterstaff is going to start running out of steam sooner or later. -Try to leverage your magic training more. What books do you have? Silence would be golden for you, since it should be fairly accessible with your skill investment. Other very good hexes for melee characters include summon mana vipers and metabolic englaciation, though I wouldn't really go for the latter since ice magic won't get you much and would require spreading yourself quite thin. -Cover your fire vulnerability. It's not a huge deal in Shoals, buy you do not want to run around in vaults or depths with an elemental vulnerability. That plate is really nice, and the amulet gives you the strength to cast in it, but two sources of rF- is going to be really hard to swing in the in mid-late game. -Consider clearing D:15 before shoals if you're having a tough time there. If you have Silence somewhere, do elf next, but carefully. It will be easy if you're cautious, but you'll explode instantly if you get jumped by a group of top-tier elves without silence available and they get lucky rolls, so go slow and always run away if in doubt. Then do vaults to 4, depths to 5, then vaults 5 or slime, depending on your preference. Heithinn Grasida fucked around with this message at 11:03 on Feb 22, 2016 |
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Feb 22, 2016 11:00
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