|
On November 07 2011 05:21 ]343[ wrote:
lulz, I tried playing a few lives as KoBe (what a great character/class; I should really call myself "beef"), but apparently I suck at berserking at the right times -_- TrBe was easier...
Um you're a kobold. Just berserk all the time, devour the flesh of your enemies, and wait our the exhuastion before continuing. Note that butchering corpses extends the rage the same way as attacking enemies.
|
How does this compare to ADoM?
|
On November 07 2011 10:30 Scarecrow wrote:
How does this compare to ADoM?
To be honest, the only way to truly answer that question is to go play it yourself. However, being a former ADoM player myself I'll try to help you out.
- DCSS is less static. In ADoM you got the same world and general setup every game, while DCSS changes things up a lot more, despite not having the overland map. I.e some branches don't appear in every game. There are so many vaults that even the early levels differ wildly in a way they did not do in ADoM.
- DCSS is less scummy. In ADoM you could, if you so pleased, farm the Big Room for morgias for a few hours and emerge with 99 Toughness, or you could just dive into the infinite dungeon until you were powerful. There are no such avenues of abuse in this game.
- DCSS has a new and shiny interface with autoexplore, autoinscribe and other such features. After playing DCSS, ADoM feels really clumsy and old.
- DCSS' features are just generally cooler. The spells are cooler, the gods are WAY cooler etc etc.
I'm sounding like a raving fanboy here, but I just don't know how else to put it.
|
United States10328 Posts
huehuehue died to a bunch of uniques. i should really not blindly charge into things so much T_T
|
Just won again (another basic 3-rune win: Snake Shoals Vault), this time as DDNe of Makhleb (locally, since CAO was temporarily down when I wanted to play). Pretty sure DD of Makhleb is crazy. I never used Mak much before since I think he's boring, so I didn't realize just how good his heal-on-kills passive was ... getting 30+ hp back after some kills was nice. I went with heavy armour this time because I wanted to, hard to really say if it was worthwhile but it didn't matter too much.
My endgame equips were a +8, +8 broad axe (that I branded with either pain, freezing, or fire as the situation called for), a total of 36 AC 12 EV, 14 SH, rF++, rC+++, rN+++, rElec, and +8 damage in slaying bonuses. Spells were highlighted by Haste and my weapon brands. I also had clarity and teleport prevention from my jewellery, which turned out to be pretty important since I got berserk-on-attack mutation in midgame (and it took me a long time to realize that I had clarity that was blocking it) and then got teleportitis when I quaffed all my !oMut before Zot: 5. Didn't get any real nice mutations from the potions but didn't end up with any real bad ones apart from teleportitis (which was not that bad) either.
Had a scare in Shoals against Saint Roka and then later against Ilsiuw but greater demons bailed me out of both of those. Also almost died to my own Green Death trying to Poison Arrow Mennas and hitting me after it missed a couple times (Mennas is seriously terrifying enough on his own). I did Snake without poison resistance, which ended up hurting pretty badly in Snake: 5 but I was never in any real danger of dying apart from those 3 unique encounters. Orbs of Fire were the only enemy in Zot that was any danger but they weren't too bad. Orb Guardians ended up giving me hp in the long run through Mak healing.
Only killed one character in between these 2 wins and it was to being really dumb (hey lets try on this large shield for no reason ... oh it's cursed and I have no way to get it off and I can't kill anything now GG).
|
so I ditched my ancient flip phone for some Android, and ConnectBot lets me telnet to CAO wherever I go 
DCSS's control scheme actually isn't that painful on a touch keyboard, compared to other roguelikes.
|
DD's don't really need rPois since their damage shaving pretty much nullifies the damage. Also, as long as you're in battle and killing things, you're nigh-invulnerable, as you discovered.
I agree with you that heavy armour was probably not worth it. I can't see your morgue but I assume you were never casting the high-level spells, just settling with Haste and a good weapon. Had you gone with robes you would've had a lot more EV, and lot more spellcasting ability, and a bit less weapon delay.
And yeah the DDNe is "overpowered." The only real drawback of the DD race (no regen) is more than made up for by Makhleb as well as necromancy. You also get to cast Pain in the early game without losing a hit point.
|
On November 09 2011 00:25 beef42 wrote:
DD's don't really need rPois since their damage shaving pretty much nullifies the damage. Also, as long as you're in battle and killing things, you're nigh-invulnerable, as you discovered.
I agree with you that heavy armour was probably not worth it. I can't see your morgue but I assume you were never casting the high-level spells, just settling with Haste and a good weapon. Had you gone with robes you would've had a lot more EV, and lot more spellcasting ability, and a bit less weapon delay.
And yeah the DDNe is "overpowered." The only real drawback of the DD race (no regen) is more than made up for by Makhleb as well as necromancy. You also get to cast Pain in the early game without losing a hit point.
I didn't really have anything that I wanted to cast that I couldn't other than Deflect Missiles I suppose. I got a lot of spellbooks but my spell choices were generally unexciting (no Silence, I think no Abjuration, Berserk Rage is gone as a spell, no Necronomicon spells showed up, and I had Evaporate + Fulsome Distillation to take care of clouds). I probably could've found a few more spells to use if I wanted, but nothing stood out.
It didn't feel like heavy armour gave me much more survivability compared to light armour though, which is honestly just plain backwards since you're already disadvantaged in so many ways by using it. It should be similarly powerful at the start and then noticeably more powerful at the end of the game, but as-is it's weaker early on and then comparable late.
|
On November 07 2011 07:51 jeppew wrote:
I just lost a level 23 Demonspawn venomancer to boris :/
First character that i've been able to cast ice storm with, but i got 3 misscasts on boris which killed me.
Well i guess there is justice after all. While my next character (DrTm) was clearing vault i was fighting something which i thought was an unseen horror in a corridor, except that it just wouldn't die, so i put on a ring of see invisible:
+ Show Spoiler +
This run is going great so far, got transmutation to 17 and can cast dragonform pretty reliably and i got some nice resistance gear going, but i'm missing an amulet of clarity for Alistair's Intoxication.
+ Show Spoiler + Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup version 0.9.1 character file.
jeppew the Warrior (Mottled Draconian Transmuter) Turns: 74141, Time: 05:36:53
HP 117/171 AC 18 Str 30 XL: 19 Next: 82%
MP 38/38 EV 24 Int 29 God: Cheibriados [******]
Gold 3835 SH 0 Dex 29 Spells: 14 memorised, 2 levels left
Res.Fire : + + + See Invis. : + - Unarmed
Res.Cold : + + + Warding : + . u - +2 robe of Lessening {MR, Slow}
Life Prot.: + + . Conserve : . (shield currently unavailable)
Res.Acid. : . . . Res.Corr. : . m - +2 cap of Belated Steps {rC+ rF+, Slow}
Res.Poison: . Clarity : . X - +2 cloak from the Turtle {rC+, Slow}
Res.Elec. : + Spirit.Shd : . (gloves unavailable)
Sust.Abil.: . . Stasis : . (boots unavailable)
Res.Mut. : . Ctrl.Telep.: . o - amulet "Bracw" {Ward +Rage +Inv rElec Str-
Res.Rott. : . Levitation : . s - ring of see invisible
Saprovore : . . . Ctrl.Flight: + T - ring of protection from fire
@: blade hands, very slow, quite resistant to hostile enchantments, stealthy
A: breathe sticky flames, unfitting armour
a: Breathe Sticky Flame, End Transformation, Make Ponderous, Bend Time, Slouch, Step From Time, Renounce Religion, Evoke Berserk Rage, Evoke Invisibility
You are on level 3 of the Vaults.
You worship Cheibriados.
Cheibriados is exalted by your worship.
You are not hungry.
Your hands are blades.
edit: just killed Mennas on the same floor.
|
Nice, you got to be a mottled dragon. Do you ever use your breath weapon? Is it effective?
|
ok ive decided to start playing.
I have no idea what Im doing god help me
|
On November 09 2011 09:59 ZaplinG wrote:
ok ive decided to start playing.
I have no idea what Im doing god help me
Make a kobold berserker. Wield nothing but short blades all game, sabre is best. For your stats take nothing but DEX. But'c'her and 'e'at every single non-green (poisonous) corpse you get. If you are already engorged, 'p'ray instead to sacrifice to Trog, your bloodthirsty beserker god. Before battles, go berserk by pressing 'a' twice. Do this all the time. If berserk isn't enough, Trog will grant you sick as shit summons a little bit later on, also available from the 'a' menu. These summons cost piety so if you spam them too hard Trog will stop giving you access to them, and he'll give you less stuff.
At some point, Trog will start giving you buttloads of weapons of varying quality. You're looking for a sabre of speed. You want to save your Enchant Weapon scrolls for such a sabre.
Remember, Trog hates spell magic (i.e from spellbooks, he doesn't mind wands and scrolls and potions and such), so just ignore that.
|
On November 09 2011 09:59 ZaplinG wrote:
ok ive decided to start playing.
I have no idea what Im doing god help me
Make a deep dwarf necromancer. Wield nothing but axes or short blades (if the latter, train stabbing) all game. DD's don't regenerate naturally so don't take damage if you don't need to. You start with a wand of healing but save the charges on it. Use all scrolls of recharging on it. Don't memorize any spells until you get Vampiric Draining, since you need this to regain life. Ignore all altars until you find Makhleb's. His life-on-kill is crucial for this build.
At first you pain everything to death. A little later you drain everything to death. Pain and draining doesn't work on demons and the undead, so just kill these things with weapons or wands.
|
On November 09 2011 09:54 beef42 wrote:
Nice, you got to be a mottled dragon. Do you ever use your breath weapon? Is it effective?
not much since you have to be standing right next to them anyways, but it's really good if you're surrounded as it can hit more than one enemy in range and it probably does the most damage of all the breath weapons.
|
just played my first char... deep dwarf necro. ran around fighting sleeping bats for two minutes, collected about 40 gold, then died to two hobgoblins wielding maces. First life total time spent: maybe 3 minutes.
idk about this game :X
|
On November 09 2011 19:56 ZaplinG wrote:
just played my first char... deep dwarf necro. ran around fighting sleeping bats for two minutes, collected about 40 gold, then died to two hobgoblins wielding maces. First life total time spent: maybe 3 minutes.
idk about this game :X
Make a deep elf wizard. Play extremely cautiously until level 3, (rest after every fight) where you can memorize Mephitic Cloud. Mephitic Cloud confuses enemies that aren't poison resistant. Confused enemies move in a random direction every turn. If they "hit" a monster or the player, they'll attack instead. You will be granted experience if a monster you confuse kills another monster. Wield short blades and maybe get a little in stabbing because you can stab confused monsters. (don't try this on big monsters, they might OHKO you) Concentrate on Spellcasting and Conjuration. Later on, you will worship Sif Muna or Vehumet for their spellbook gifts, and you will pick a magical element to train based on what spellbooks you got.
|
Well almost no one of us played these kind of console based games when they were new. We are all used to new video games and then go back to this kind of game, albeit DCSS is kind of a modern version.
You need to get used to 3 things. The graphics, the controls and the play style.
The graphics and the controls are not too difficult to get used to. But I myself really struggle with the discipline needed to keep your character alive.
The help file and the tutorial are quite helpful for beginners.
There's some 'tricks'. All letters are creatures. Other symbols are items or something else.
I almost always use 'o' to auto explore. Then when it stops you have to be careful and see if there's dangerous monsters in the list middle right.
Some important commands, 'c' is to butcher corpses, 'e' is to eat. 'z' is to cast spells. 'w' wields weapons 'W' wears armor. 'R' removes stuff. 'r' reads stuff, 'q' quaffs potions. 'P' puts on jewelry. 'M' memorizes new spells and 'm' shows your skills which level automatically.
'd' drops stuff, 'i' shows your inventory. '<' and '>' use the stairs. 's' and '5' can be used to rest. And 'x' examines a tile while 'v' gives more info.
Most important skill is to learn what monsters are dangerous. For the beginning of the game it's often the uniques, the player ghosts and the first centaurs. Also the first group of orcs. Orc wizards or priests can be a pain. Best to confuse them in some way. Then first ogres and first trolls.
Poison can also be very dangerous. Often you just have to wait it out by resting in a safe place.
So important is often to ignore a monsters that's too strong and then go back and kill it later.
Of course a lot of luck is involved in this game period.
So yes rest always after a major fight to regain the hp and mp. Also there's obvious things as using corridors vs groups of melee creatures and line of sight. Also, stair dancing when a new level has a lot of monsters. Maybe obvious stuff but still.
Use the dungeon crawl wiki and look up monsters:
http://crawl.chaosforge.org/index.php?title=CrawlWiki
Can be considered a spoiler or cheating in a way to read up stuff of course.
|
If you want to learn how to play the only command you 100% have to know is "??" which will give you a list of the rest of the commands.
If you get frustrated by dying a lot, you should probably stop playing and look for another game, most likely in another genre. Winning 1% of the time is doing very well compared to the majority of Crawl players (the winrate over the August 2011 tournament was about 0.6%). You will die. You will die often. Those deaths will be largely preventable, but the fact is that Crawl can kill you for a single mistake made at the wrong time. If you learn from your deaths you will improve as a player. If you don't learn you'll keep dying the same way and probably quit playing.
If you want information on monsters, honestly the game itself will tell you the majority of what you need to know if you just examine the monster in-game. You can get more detailed stats elsewhere but they likely won't mean much to you anyway.
Personally I recommend just trying out whatever race/class combinations sound fun among the ones that are recommended (so pick a race, then choose from the white-lettered classes for that race; or do it the other way around). beef42's suggestions are fine (KoBe should be reasonably straightforward and you don't have to worry about food much, so they're maybe the simplest he's suggested; but of course by worshipping Trog you miss out entirely on all the magic in Crawl which is one of its selling points) but if you want to try something else you certainly can.
|
I think I missed one "OP" combo in my little series of guides, so here goes.
Make a spriggan enchanter. Use short blades all game. Keep both a dagger and a sabre on you. Use the dagger for the sick stabbing bonus against unaware enemies, use sabre for straight fights. In the early game, focus on stabbing to get it to 6-7 or such. Spriggans are naturally fast and stealthy, and this makes up for their early weakness by either granting you OHKO's on monsters, or letting you run away easily.
For nasty monsters in the early game, simply spam them with Ensorcelled Hibernation until it works, then drive your dagger through their skulls (or skull-equivalent). Alternatively, run away and ignore them. Note that even undead creatures can be stabbed, although Hibernation won't work. You can use Confuse on them however.
Train Hexes until Invisibility is on a good cast rate, then turn it off, you won't need anything else from it. This character is pretty well-rounded on his own, and such he has a few choices for gods. Either you can go with Kiku and pick up necromancy, or you can put all those useless items to use and sacrifice them to Nemelex for the decks of summoning. Okawaru can be pretty legit as well, 'cuz he'll give you awesome gear and he's got good granted powers.
This character takes a little more finesse in the early game then the others, but is arguably the most powerful of all the combos.
|
So getting a cloak of invisibility (an artifact one at that) on a KoBe early on definitely feels like cheating. Stab everything that can't see you, then if you can't stab something you just berserk on it. Currently using a +6, +8 antimagic quick blade, only other things I'm even looking for in Trog's gifts are maybe an artifact short blade, a quick blade of electrocution, or a quick blade/sabre of holy wrath if I decide to go somewhere that the latter is useful.
I ended up getting the abyssal rune as my first rune on what proved to be a very boring Abyss journey, have 4 runes right now and am about to clear out Elf. We'll see where I go afterward.
edit: Died to demonology, because I was not equipped to deal with triple "1"s.
|
|
|
|
|
|
EPT![[image loading]](http://img819.imageshack.us/img819/5061/borisp.png)
