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On February 22 2012 17:15 ZaplinG wrote:Blah, my best wizard yet (lvl 14 HEWi) just died a gruesome death in the swamps after swiping the rune. Had a fun time though. I stumbled on an early kiku altar, so I took it on d:2. Between skeleton/imp spam, i was able to clear everything with relatively little trouble. Upgraded to raise dead and forgot raise skeleton when I had enough mana to support the change. Found a nice smoking staff of poison, which proved to be the best item I would find all game. Allowed me to meph cloud myself if I got swarmed (and I did, many times). Figured out how to build abominations on Lair 1, so I quickly built 8 of them (the optimal number for moving up and down stairs because you have a box formation). Was easy enough with the copious amounts of bodies in Lair and by using the Kiku deliver corpse ability. Between them tanking, me casting summon flame/darts/meph, I rolled lair. I was feeling strong, so I made a move to the Swamps. I had learned Agonize (a very powerful spell, btw) which helped immensely with dragons/hydras and I had that staff of poison, so I figured I could snag the rune fairly quickly as long as I didn't dilly dally around. My plan went well. I didn't lose a single abom until I ran into the 5 dragons/3 hydras/2 alligators gaurding the rune. We had a bloody battle, I lost 4 aboms, but had been resurrecting everything after they died so I had some powerful zombies now. I swiped the rune and was on my way out when I ran into some unique that cast a spell I had never seen before. It was some illusion based thing that changed all the sprites, so I couldn't tell what was what. She was also backed up by a ton of green jellies, who combined into super powerful little shits during all the confusion and wiped out everything. With no followers with me and all the sprites still mixed up, I fled. Unfortunately, I drug a super jelly up with me. I ran from it, but got pushed into a pack of vamp mosquitoes. They sucked all my blood out and I became a mindless kiku slave. Looking back now, I think I should have just done more dungeon. I was only down to D:10, I could have probably gone to 17-18 before facing any real threat. This was the furthest I have ever gone with a wizard and I really enjoyed myself. The game felt so much more tactical and thought provoking. I know high elves dont make the best necros, but I never found a spell stronger than darts so I had to go the summoning route for my damage. fun times  (also, is it just me or does .10 feel way harder?)
I've also noticed a ramp up in difficulty in 0.10. Poison seems so much stronger. (Sounds weird, I know) but I never died to poison before and its happened to me 5 or 6 times recently.
Wizards are so super fun. They're just so damn fragile. And it's really frustrating not being able to find good books.
Last 10 wizards I played, no book loot at all.
Last 1 death knight I found 3 great spell books with level 7-9 spells in each of them.
Blargh.
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On February 22 2012 15:03 myopia wrote:
go into your options config file (init.txt if you're playing local) (but you should play online if at all possible) and uncomment/add these lines:
show_gold_turns = true
show_game_turns = true
now the turn counter will display exactly how long each of your actions takes.
Not exactly sure what you mean. Those 2 lines of text are already in my init.txt file, and whenenever I try to save changes it says "Access is denied."
Also, what are the advantages of playing online? And would changing the settings in that file change the settings for online play as well?
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My guess is the default init.txt has show_gold_turns and show_game_turns commented out so those lines don't do anything. If you can't edit the file that's something with your operating system and permissions.
Playing online has the advantages that it is dramatically easier to get advice (you can ask in ##crawl and someone will probably look at your game and give you some ideas), it is easier to find a specific morgue usually, you can play the same game from multiple computers, and you can watch other people play. The disadvantages are possible latency and the fact you need an internet connection. Also no one in ##crawl cares about your offline achievements :p
Your settings will be stored either on the CAO server or on the CDO server depending on where you play, but you can edit those files just fine (if you are doing a lot of editing you should probably use copy/paste and an actual text editor to do so).
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Alright, thanks for the help, you're right it was commented out. And idk why it wouldn't let me save but I tried running notepad as administrator and it worked.
Seeing as how I just started and am still playing through the tutorials to grasp the basics, I'll hold off playing online for now, but it's good to know that stuff for the future. Thanks for the help!
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I have a battleaxe of flaming, broad axe of electrocution (just got from from okawaru), and a battleaxe of chopping on my MiFi right now and currently in Lair 2. I know I should keep the battleaxe of flaming to deal with the hydras, but what should I keep between the other two? Is there a reason to prefer one over the other in a certain situation? Also, is it worth going into spellcasting for Apporation, Swiftness, or Control Teleport (the most useful spells that are in my spellbook stash) or just go straight axes+fighting+armor?
EDIT: And I just got a broad axe of flaming from oka... I'm assuming battleaxes are better than broad axes?
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Broad axe if you want to use shields. If you do, elec is a perfectly fine brand for one.
Otherwise the flaming battleaxe is probably enough by itself. Eventually you'd want to replace it with an executioner's axe.
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If you are going to kill everything with tab you should use a twohander in most cases (the only time I would consider a one handed weapon would be on naga or maybe centaur since you get large shields at lower skill levels) since you will kill things significantly faster than with a one-hander. Use the battleaxe of flaming (chopping is a worse brand than flaming against the vast majority of enemies in the game).
With a heavy armour character what I do is ignore spellcasting altogether for a good portion of the game; at some point there are a couple ways you can go:
1) Continue to ignore spellcasting. This is the most obvious route if you have crystal plate or GDA. It works fine, you just have to be good at melee combat (which is not nearly as easy as you might think; melee combat is actually significantly more difficult to learn than just nuking everything with conjurations).
2) Pick up fire or ice dragon armour and get quite a few spells. Especially if you have wizardry it is not hard to get level 5 and 6 spells castable in these armours. You should definitely get haste if you go this route.
3) Stick with plate armour (or storm dragon armour) and learn some low-level spells. Stuff like rmsl, swiftness, apportation, blink, summon butterflies, probably regeneration. If you get more xp you can get to higher level stuff including haste but if you're not going to do extended you probably would be better served by using FDA if you want haste since it takes less xp.
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Thanks you guys! Hopefully I don't start dying like I always do when I get this far...
Here is my morgue file for today http://pastebin.com/Bt1GAsPB.
Right now, I finished the Lair and the Orcish Mines.
Couple of questions:
Looking at the options crate has given me, I'm probably going to go the 3) route because its the middle of the two and it sounds the most reliable. When should I start leveling spellcasting? I think I'm pretty good in the armor, axe, and fighting skills so that I can afford to spend exp on spellcasting. Am I right?
Along with that, when does it start to get necessary to level up Traps and Doors a bit?
Also, I just got gifted the sling of the Beast {god gift, venom, -TELE rF+ MR}. Usually I wouldn't bother with ranged weapons, but I just came from the Orcish Mines where there were a lot of centaurs and orc warriors with crossbows that I got pretty low a lot of times before I could start meleeing them. I feel like a long ranged option would be good because I don't have repel missles (or any spells for defense for that matter), but I'm not sure if its worth the exp.
Finally, the most noobish question: if one is surrounded, does it make the character more vulnerable (more likely to be hit)? It always feels that way to me, but I realize it could just be the probability of getting hit by 3 enemies at the same time to make it seem like it is more vulnerable.
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That's a pretty nice battleaxe you have there. You should hold on to that since it will be handy if you need resists (even though it won't kill stuff as fast as a better-enchanted one would).
You can afford to put xp into spellcasting with where you are, yes. I might get another level or two of invocations for more reliable finesse (and I think a bit more duration on both it and heroism). You can continue to improve your armour skill some too, though fighting is not terribly pressing right now. If you want you can turn axes off entirely for a while or even the rest of the game, though I might go to 22 so Heroism boosts you to 27 (so you get a bit more damage). Definitely turn axes and armour off at 22 unless you plan to ditch Oka though (or if you find an executioner's axe).
You can level T&D whenever you think getting a few quick levels of it won't be a big hit to your other skills. You can win quite fine with 0 T&D, though usually at some point getting 8 levels or so is so cheap that it's worthwhile anyway (in Vault:8 if not before).
If you want a ranged weapon I would go with crossbows, since you're not using a shield and crossbows are the most effective option with low skill. They also have more useful brands than bows and ammo is pretty plentiful. Look for a crossbow of velocity from yaktaur packs if you decide to pick one up (probably not a bad idea, since both of Okawaru's abilities are silly good with ranged combat, even moreso than with melee). I would probably get up to 8 skill so Oka will gift you ammo and so you attack faster, but past that it is up to you.
AC and EV work exactly the same no matter how many enemies are around you, but shields actually do get worse against multiple attacks in one turn. Every time you block an attack, you get less likely to block another attack that round. But you are still more vulnerable when you're getting attacked 3 times per round than when you are only getting attacked once :p
edit: Here is a log of my TeGl of Okawaru which shows what I did for spellcasting in plate. Oka actually changes it up a bit in that the 5 levels of tons of skills he gives you frees up a lot more xp for spellcasting, so you can go up to level 5/6 spells in a 3 rune win easily.
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Also 0.10 is definitely up on CAO and I think it is online on CDO. 0.10 tournament starts in about 1 day and 5 hours!
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United States47024 Posts
OK, so one thing I'm still confused about is how do I value different brands vs. weapon enchants vs. weapon type. For an example, I'll use the weapons I have in the game I just started:
p - the +2,+0 dagger of Vamn (weapon) {freeze, rC+}
e - a +1,+3 dwarven dagger of draining
j - a +0,+0 sabre
n - a +2,+0 elven short sword
How do I reasonably compare the performance of these different weapons?
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first off: the difference between elven/orc/dwarven gear is mostly negligible. you get a tiny bonus to accuracy or ev penalty if you happen to be that race. dwarf gear gets an extra chance to resist corrosion. elf items weigh a little less. good gods wont let you use demonic weapons.
when comparing weapons, your first check should be base weapon type. sabres have the highest base damage out of all short blades, though quick blades have 40% faster speed. base damage has a much higher bearing on your killability than enchantment (slaying) bonuses.
you want high base damage weapons to have multiplicative brands (flame,freeze,holy wrath, i think drain is in here too), while your fast hitting accurate short blades will want additive damage (elec,pain,distortion,venom), though additive brands tend to be good on everything. a dagger used for stabbing will want a multiplier brand to combo with the massive damage bonus.
as for your weapons, they're all about equally bad. if I had to choose, Id use the drain dagger simply for its +3.
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Anyone on the TL team for the 0.10 tournament should add the following line to the very top of your 0.10 rcfile on CAO (edit: I think it works from CDO also):
# TEAMCAPTAIN crate
You can check if you got it right be seeing if you appear on the team roster on this page.
---
What myopia said about weapons is pretty much right except that brands basically don't matter when you stab. The ridiculous stabbing damage bonus will immediately kill most things anyway so your brand won't even trigger (unless it is vampiric, in which case you will heal an enormous amount of HP, but this is only important for DD or bloodless VP).
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The clan page updates every 4 hours, so it doesn't necessarily mean you messed up if you don't see your name right away.
Edit: I think 4 hours is outdated info, it appears to update much more frequently.
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Could I still join the tl team for the tournament? I don't really have that much time to play but I remember someone saying thT there're no penalties for anything.
I finally managed to circumvent the uni's firewall and connect to the online servers, although I prefer CDO as it tends to have lower latency to where I am.
You can find the few games I've managed in the online stattuses under the same name I use here, I've been dabbling with demonspawns lately as I enjoy the random goodish mutatiobs a lot. The run I'm in right now should be easy enough to get through unless I get really unlucky.
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Well we have six people already if everyone joins, but if not everyone plays sure you're welcome to join the team instead. Teams don't have to be finalized until more than a week after the tournament starts.
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Yah, was on my phone when writing that (which tends to make some of my posts a bit uncomprehensible as I lose my train of thought) and couldn't locate the original post about the tournament. As in, forgpt about tje 6-limot of players. Of coirse someone who can allocate mprw time should be on the team
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Also, some advice needed:
Playing with a sword + board heavyish armor DSGl and I've recently come across the following dragon skins, fire, pearl, mottled and steam, although I think I've found something like 2 scrolls of enchant armour around the dungeons so far, and none in shops, which one I should enchant when given the chance?
I'd like to be able to cast spells like def. missiles and regeneration at least, and am currently learning the skills for them.
I've got decent resists atm from my gear, no resist poison though (which is why I've been thinking about trying to find a swamp dragon armour).
I get rcold + and rfire + from my shield currently and am planning on keeping it til the end, so maybe pearl dragon for some extra rN? and hope for rpois ring to clear out snake.
Also got res acid ++ from my yellow scales mutation.
edit: found a scroll of ench armour in a shop, also am currently wearing a randart +7 splint mail with +3 int.
Also, is 14 enough for minimum delay on demon blades? (not that I've found one yet) and is there a specific brand I should aim for? I'm thinking of many different things but can't really decide.
edit:2 add an ice dragon hide to that too :p
Also the thing I'm mostly concerned is how much of +armour should I get on a dragon for it to be worthwhile
edit 3 :D
Finally found a demon blade, and electrocution to boot!
and a edit 4! God dang, runed swamp dragon armour! (+2) also the 1st treasure trove I've ever been able to enter, after I get 50 more gold to buy the heal wounds potions in all the shops (exact amount too!) I bet I'm gonna shatter one coming back to the trove :D
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United States10328 Posts
Hmm, is a dagger of chaos any good for stabby SpEn? (I have a venom dagger too, haha)
edit: nvm, died trying to conf/stab a rock troll skeleton. qq.
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Nah chaos is pretty bad. Eventually it's going to polymorph your target into something really bad and you'll die.
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EPT
