Well, decided to finally give this game a shot. Played ADoM/Nethack before, never really got anywhere significant. Dungeons of Dredmor got me back on a roguelike kick. Started with a KoBe.

Read-IDed Curse Weapon and Curse Armor, was ok cuz I figured my +4, +1 Elven Sabre would last till I found a Remove Curse scroll.
Killed Pikel and Purgy on D:4.
Ran into Duvessa/Dowan on D:5. Snuck a few rooms past them into a jelly. Stab the jelly, +4, +1 Sabre quickly becomes +4, -2. Try to back out, back into Duvessa/Dowan who kill me.

Time to try something else. The game feels really smooth compared to other roguelikes. I'm liking it so far.

myopia

United States2928 Posts

January 02 2012 03:52 GMT

#342

Aye, it took me a while to accept it, but DCSS is a cut above every other roguelike I've played. And I've played a lot of roguelikes.

TheYango

United States47024 Posts

January 02 2012 04:15 GMT

#343

Quick question: do scrolls of curse foo ID themselves if read when you're not wearing anything in that slot? I know my scroll of remove curse didn't ID when I read it while I wasn't wearing anything cursed, so I'm curious if the same is true for cursing scrolls.

crate

United States2474 Posts

January 02 2012 04:19 GMT

#344

On January 02 2012 13:15 TheYango wrote:
Quick question: do scrolls of curse foo ID themselves if read when you're not wearing anything in that slot? I know my scroll of remove curse didn't ID when I read it while I wasn't wearing anything cursed, so I'm curious if the same is true for cursing scrolls.

Curse foo does not ID if it doesn't curse something.

myopia

United States2928 Posts

January 02 2012 05:40 GMT

#345

My VaEn of Ashenzari has a quickblade and a dagger of speed. I'm thinking the dagger is the better weapon for the stabbing bonus?

crate

United States2474 Posts

January 02 2012 05:48 GMT

#346

On January 02 2012 14:40 myopia wrote:
My VaEn of Ashenzari has a quickblade and a dagger of speed. I'm thinking the dagger is the better weapon for the stabbing bonus?

I think quickblade still ends up being better outside of stabbing, so personally I'd go with the quickblade. You still get very nice stabbing damage (I was one-hitting most everything with sabre-stabbing on my SpSt of Ash game) and you're better at killing stuff outside of stabbing.

Sabre of speed or sabre of electrocution is really what you probably want with Ash if you can find one (or quickblade of electrocution, of course, but those are really rare).

myopia

United States2928 Posts

January 02 2012 06:00 GMT

#347

ah HA it's me vs crate's naga warper in the lair! FIGHT

spoke too soon, centaur'd

Misder

United States1557 Posts

January 02 2012 06:50 GMT

#348

I'm in the temple, and I kinda need a god for my SpEn! This is my first time getting this far with any fighter-mage (mostly playing MDFi, KoBe, DDNE) and I have no idea what kinda god I should use.

EDIT: Read the guide on the first page. How hard is Nemelex to use?

crate

United States2474 Posts

January 02 2012 08:47 GMT

#349

Nemelex is so powerful that even if you don't use him particularly well he's very strong. Decks of summoning are very nearly perfectly safe to use as a Spriggan (if you get something hostile you can just run away, since only the lowest-power effects can produce hostiles), and decks of destruction are pretty strong too imo--the most powerful effect is crystal spears, but with full-LOS range (though you can torment yourself with those, so be a bit careful). A legendary deck of summoning usually has effects that are on-par with Makhleb's summon greater servant, except they're never hostile.

You can use ?/s in-game to describe cards, and they're listed in the learndb also.

srulz

6 Posts

January 02 2012 09:11 GMT

#350

And so I re-login at TeamLiquid after so long just because of this thread, thanks guys! :D

Anyway, to crate:

Just how do you raise piety as an Evylion follower? I really recognize the impressive power that she will bring to you, but praying over weapons seem really limited/slow right now

and pacifying stuff will give you half experience right.

crate

United States2474 Posts

January 02 2012 09:37 GMT

#351

You raise piety for Ely by pressing aa enter. The half exp gain is not a big deal ... you have to focus your skills a bit more but if your non-Ely way to kill stuff is by hitting it with a weapon this isn't a big deal anyway since you don't need a lot of xp if you're only training seven skills or so. I won my HOHe and pacified basically everything I could until the end of Lair, at which point I had at least 5* piety. Once you hit that you should still pacify popcorn monsters since the xp loss is negligible and you can still get piety, but you can use your discretion about the rest of the stuff you run into.

On D:1 you should note that in Crawl one half of 1 is 1, so you don't lose xp on bats or rats or maybe some other D:1 monsters.

TheYango

United States47024 Posts

January 02 2012 16:39 GMT

#352

So, started a Ghoul Fighter, and figured I'd get these questions in early:

1) Skill priorities? I've got Unarmed and Armor going right now, will turn on Fighting after a couple more levels. I'm guessing I can take Unarmed to 30. When should I stop Armor? I'll probably also get a ranged weapon skill if a good one turns up for backup. Invocations when it becomes relevant?

2) God choices? Not really sure what to expect/try with Gods at this point.

EDIT: Actually, what armor should I be aiming to use in the first place?

beef42

Denmark1037 Posts

January 02 2012 17:13 GMT

#353

Ghouls are a shit race nobody ever plays. I highly doubt any of us have much experience with it. Even so, ghouls are equally bad at dodging and armour skills, so just go ahead and do what you like. Note that you need a strength score at least 3 times the evasion modifer of an armor to use it effectively. Obviously if you have any aspirations of magic or stealth, you're going to want to keep it light.

Don't wear gloves, they'll cover up your claws leaving them useless.

Okawaru is a standard choice for most fighter types. He'll give you armor gifts as well as give you access to some great granted powers. He's one of the guys that love living sacrifice, so just sacrifice everything you don't eat to him.

TheYango

United States47024 Posts

January 02 2012 17:41 GMT

#354

In general, when should I stop training Armor or Dodge? How do I judge whether I've over-trained them?

beef42

Denmark1037 Posts

January 02 2012 17:42 GMT

#355

They keep being good all the way up to level 27, as does UC. Obviously the later levels need way more xp points than the first ones, so if you have any other aspects you want to train you can turn them off a bit early. If not, just keep it on and forget about it.

srulz

6 Posts

January 02 2012 17:49 GMT

#356

What wait what?? Shit race?? Ghoul Fighter of Makhleb is THE easiest char for a newbie to use. Though it's my first winning char, so I may be a little biased here

)

Here, let me share some advantages of it compared to others:
1. Gourmand = no hunger game.
2. Undead = rN+++, rC+, rPois, and torment immunity.
3. High unarmed damage, almost like troll.
4. Full slots + can wear gloves vs hydras, not like troll.
5. No mutations only rotting, almost like mummy.
6. Rotting is easily healed, not like mummy.

Strategy:
1. Focus on Unarmed.
2. Get a Shield for increase in survivability (know the breakpoints: 5/15/25 = Buckler/Shield/Large Shield), especially if you're going spell-less (easier for newbies anyway).
3. Hell, get anything you want, you pretty much could fill up all your resists unlike almost all other races.
4. If you're kinda new, better go heavy Armors though. No need to worry about spells/dodging/int, just max your strength.
4. Go Makhleb for HP on kills + CRAZY OP demons, though get Invocations to about 11 for safety (higher is better, but not worth it IMO).
5. Use Makhleb's Greater Demons as a preparation tool, not as last-minute resort thing. So if one is hostile, either run or kill or summon another or 2.

Oh yeah, and know all the little quirks of the species, like eating rotting meat etc. Wiki is kinda good for that sort of thing, just double-check the facts there with the Knowledge Bot of course.

Also, holy stuff own you. Though you almost never encounter them, except Mennas. For him, summon 3-4 Greater Demon as backup. For Zot room, same.

You'll win in no time!

beef42

Denmark1037 Posts

January 02 2012 17:54 GMT

#357

It's good someone around here knows what they're talking about. Let me add that to the OP.

TheYango

United States47024 Posts

January 02 2012 18:18 GMT

#358

Continuing the bombardment of questions: I understand that I want to level my weapon skill until my weapon of choice reaches minimum delay--how do I tell when that is? The knowledge bots tell me what the max/min delay on my weapon is, but where do I find the current delay in-game?

ZaplinG

United States3818 Posts

January 02 2012 18:19 GMT

#359

srulz comes out of nowhere

is super effective,

going to try it out now, wish me luck

beef42

Denmark1037 Posts

January 02 2012 18:31 GMT

#360

On January 03 2012 03:18 TheYango wrote:
Continuing the bombardment of questions: I understand that I want to level my weapon skill until my weapon of choice reaches minimum delay--how do I tell when that is? The knowledge bots tell me what the max/min delay on my weapon is, but where do I find the current delay in-game?

Every two levels in a weapon skill decreases delay by one. Minimum delay is half the weapon's base delay. Note UC is specialcased so that mindelay is reached on level 27.