EPT(I died, again. I swear I used to be decent at this game)
Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup - Page 56
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myopia
United States2928 Posts
(I died, again. I swear I used to be decent at this game) | ||
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Misder
United States1557 Posts
Ugh, almost died because I thought it would be a good idea to go up a stair that was unexplored at ~30hp and no mana... Anyways, thoughts on what I should do with the scroll of acquirement? Or should I wait until after I clear V:8. I'm pretty sure I'll have no trouble there. Oh, and thoughts about doing extended with this character? Also, mutations are annoying  | ||
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crate
United States2474 Posts
Ideally you'd acquire a staff of fire or conjuration probably but that's unreliable given your skill levels so I guess wand or armour are fine. Or weapon. | ||
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Misder
United States1557 Posts
I have a staff of fire and conjurations in my stash- just not using it cause I wanted Fire Storm and Haste to be reliable with the staff of wizardry. Is there a difference between using a staff of fire or a staff of conjurations? | ||
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crate
United States2474 Posts
What I would do next with your character (acquire whatever you want, you have enough to get all the runes, wand is probably the best bet at improving your chances of not dying) is train staves skill so you can melee with the staff of fire. It will do enormous damage with your fire/evo skill. Then with some actual defenses you can save a ton of mp by just tabbing things that aren't going to kill you. --- Also some notes on your spellset ... you really want bolt of fire if it exists so go learn it (it is the best general-use fire spell in the game). What I aim for in conjurations is my bolt spell (lightning/cold/fire ... lrd serves this purpose for EE), some conjuration for damaging resistant enemies (poison arrow for 3 runes usually since it works on almost everything with rF/rC, maybe icicle for IE, iron shot/lcs for more than 3 runes. IOOD serves this purpose but it has problems that make it very awkward to use against a lot of enemies), your relevant level 9 conjuration, and then one or maybe two more conjuration(s) (for air I will for sure learn chain lightning, for ice I will learn refrigeration, for fire probably ring of flames which I put here because it is like a conjuration; I might have a cloud spell though these are pretty useless in extended in general). Other conjuration spells overlap in purpose with the above so you don't really need them. You also want haste, repel/deflect missiles, swiftness, control teleport, blink, controlled blink, summon butterflies, apportation, phase shift if you can be bothered to cast it (short duration). If you don't worship a good god, you want regeneration, borg's, and then maybe death's door, maybe necromutation (ddoor is exceptionally powerful but if you misplay it can get you killed, necromutation makes lots of things simpler but can make things go badly; both are very large investments). I like having sublimation of blood for cboe-failures. So my general purpose FE spellset would probably be this: + Show Spoiler +
That's 70 out of 72 total possible spell slots unless I miscounted. The least important spell here is ring of flames so if I am picking up necromut/ddoor I would drop that first. You can shuffle some things around depending on personal preference (and what order you learn these spells is also preference) and what you have available, but note that even with only 3 actual conjuration spells I'm pressed for spell slots. --- As far as enchanting armour goes, here is what I have been doing recently: If I have +1 boots I will always enchant to +2. Like I said running basically doesn't exist and the other boot brands are mostly meaningless. +0 boots will usually get enchanted, though you should check every pair you find until you get a +2 one. Similarly I will immediately enchant +1 gloves and usually +0 gloves, because +3 str/+3 dex is rarely that big a deal and they're also reasonably rare. Helmets are quite common and you are reasonably likely to find an ego one so I rarely enchant +0 helmets. I will enchant the first ego helmet I find though. For races who can only wear caps/hats enchant the first one you find, they're rare. I will enchant my first cloak of MR or preservation, because those cloaks are very good and I am happy with either. You will usually find at least a +1 cloak to wear in the meantime. Obviously enchant the first barding you get with a naga/centaur, you almost certainly won't find a branded one. Body armour is a difficult choice, actually. If I'm playing a heavy armour character and I get a plate of rF or rC I will enchant it right away. Usually I end up having to wait until I get my dragon armour of choice to want to enchant body armour ... which is why enchanting aux armour early is so nice! I still get my +AC from using my enchant armour, which is a big deal--+8 ac from aux slots alone ... that's a free ring of robustness if you find the scrolls. Enchanting aux armour first makes sense because it lets you switch body armour later on without wasting your ?EA, and +2 ac is better than many of the aux armour egos anyway. | ||
]343[
United States10328 Posts
keep dying in lair, ugh | ||
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crate
United States2474 Posts
+5,+6 spear of elec Finisher a bardiche from Urug which is now TSO-blessed +2,+7 antimagic bardiche I also am wearing FDA and have Robustness ring so I have like 40 AC, and with phase shift about 30 EV. | ||
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Cel.erity
United States4890 Posts
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Misder
United States1557 Posts
On October 25 2012 17:27 crate wrote: Well you should carry a staff of fire/conj anyway ... you do not always need to be casting haste/fire storm, and staff of fire/conj is quite good for other spells! As far as enhancing spells go the staves are the same for fire/conj spells. Staff of fire also gives rF+ and has elemental staff melee, so you can afford to just carry it. What I would do next with your character (acquire whatever you want, you have enough to get all the runes, wand is probably the best bet at improving your chances of not dying) is train staves skill so you can melee with the staff of fire. It will do enormous damage with your fire/evo skill. Then with some actual defenses you can save a ton of mp by just tabbing things that aren't going to kill you. --- Also some notes on your spellset ... you really want bolt of fire if it exists so go learn it (it is the best general-use fire spell in the game). What I aim for in conjurations is my bolt spell (lightning/cold/fire ... lrd serves this purpose for EE), some conjuration for damaging resistant enemies (poison arrow for 3 runes usually since it works on almost everything with rF/rC, maybe icicle for IE, iron shot/lcs for more than 3 runes. IOOD serves this purpose but it has problems that make it very awkward to use against a lot of enemies), your relevant level 9 conjuration, and then one or maybe two more conjuration(s) (for air I will for sure learn chain lightning, for ice I will learn refrigeration, for fire probably ring of flames which I put here because it is like a conjuration; I might have a cloud spell though these are pretty useless in extended in general). Other conjuration spells overlap in purpose with the above so you don't really need them. You also want haste, repel/deflect missiles, swiftness, control teleport, blink, controlled blink, summon butterflies, apportation, phase shift if you can be bothered to cast it (short duration). If you don't worship a good god, you want regeneration, borg's, and then maybe death's door, maybe necromutation (ddoor is exceptionally powerful but if you misplay it can get you killed, necromutation makes lots of things simpler but can make things go badly; both are very large investments). I like having sublimation of blood for cboe-failures. So my general purpose FE spellset would probably be this: + Show Spoiler +
That's 70 out of 72 total possible spell slots unless I miscounted. The least important spell here is ring of flames so if I am picking up necromut/ddoor I would drop that first. You can shuffle some things around depending on personal preference (and what order you learn these spells is also preference) and what you have available, but note that even with only 3 actual conjuration spells I'm pressed for spell slots. --- As far as enchanting armour goes, here is what I have been doing recently: If I have +1 boots I will always enchant to +2. Like I said running basically doesn't exist and the other boot brands are mostly meaningless. +0 boots will usually get enchanted, though you should check every pair you find until you get a +2 one. Similarly I will immediately enchant +1 gloves and usually +0 gloves, because +3 str/+3 dex is rarely that big a deal and they're also reasonably rare. Helmets are quite common and you are reasonably likely to find an ego one so I rarely enchant +0 helmets. I will enchant the first ego helmet I find though. For races who can only wear caps/hats enchant the first one you find, they're rare. I will enchant my first cloak of MR or preservation, because those cloaks are very good and I am happy with either. You will usually find at least a +1 cloak to wear in the meantime. Obviously enchant the first barding you get with a naga/centaur, you almost certainly won't find a branded one. Body armour is a difficult choice, actually. If I'm playing a heavy armour character and I get a plate of rF or rC I will enchant it right away. Usually I end up having to wait until I get my dragon armour of choice to want to enchant body armour ... which is why enchanting aux armour early is so nice! I still get my +AC from using my enchant armour, which is a big deal--+8 ac from aux slots alone ... that's a free ring of robustness if you find the scrolls. Enchanting aux armour first makes sense because it lets you switch body armour later on without wasting your ?EA, and +2 ac is better than many of the aux armour egos anyway. This was really useful  Thanks crate! On body armor, is there any dragon armor I should be looking for, or should I just stick to robes/leather armor? And what should I do with a buckler? What egos are best for that? | ||
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crate
United States2474 Posts
Celerity: MfSk early game is easy because you have +4 polearms apt and a spear. You don't even need your spells to do anything, but shroud and poison weapon are both very good (just get poison weapon to where a miscast won't kill you). Anyway I train only polearms until xl4 or so, then I learn poison weapon and get it to ~30% fail or so, then back to just polearms until spear min delay. Other skalds are pretty weak because they have a bad start, especially if you pick a non-spear weapon. | ||
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Salivanth
Australia1071 Posts
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Mothra
United States1448 Posts
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Blazinghand
United States25563 Posts
On October 27 2012 06:43 Mothra wrote: How do you win with such fast play times and turncounts crate? It takes me minimum 7 hours just to get 3 rune win... By the end I'm sick of playing and want to get it over with. Do you play console? Travel delay -1? I'm not sure he uses fast travel all the time either-- in terms of turncounts it's sometimes better to use X to move around, right? But when I spec him it's fast travel. Console is usually quicker, but if you're on s-z and live in the US tiles can be reasonably fast. | ||
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crate
United States2474 Posts
My turncounts are not particularly low, my average 3-rune win is pretty much the same turncount as the average (I guess I'm about 10% faster). I guess I play faster than average but as you get more used to different situations you will make decisions more quickly. Travel_delay = -1 saves time too. If you look at my player page you'll notice that my earlier wins had significantly higher durations on average (and slightly higher turncounts). If you want low turncounts here are some tips: don't autoexplore a ton (I autoexplored on my 38k turn NaIE though); don't fully-clear floors (you get most of the xp in less than 50% of the time it takes you to fully autoexplore a floor, and you can improve this more with manual exploration); start skipping floors almost entirely once you have all the xp you need; and in general just don't waste time. Also play DD so you don't have to stand around to heal (or travel around without full hp/mp). Sometimes I do get tired of playing certain characters, and then usually I will start diving to get to the end of the game faster. A few examples of this are my DDHe win (ended up under 60k turns) and my KoAs win (~80k). The only games I've had where I was specifically trying for low turncounts are my highscore (<60k 14 rune HOHe), my ~17k turn HOHe, my NaIE this tournament, and my two 9-rune SpEns (both under 50k). Those are decent games but not among the best. | ||
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Mothra
United States1448 Posts
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Cel.erity
United States4890 Posts
Had a really good run with my OpHu, smooth sailing until V:8 where I kind of ran out of options against a staircase that had a pair of ettins and a tentacled monstrosity. Invis and resting for ~1k turns didn't save me. =\ | ||
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crate
United States2474 Posts
The easy way to a free v:8 clear with fedhas: Bring about 10 fruit and enough piety to use rain twice. Go downstairs with all your buffs on like usual, get outside of the vault guard ring (I prefer going north), gain a bit of empty space. Rain twice to make whichever hallway you chose blocked off with deep water. On the edge of the water away from the stairs, make 3-4 oklobs. Press 5 a lot until all the vault guards die and their armour is all -10. Then you can kite everything in the level back to that spot and continue letting your oklobs do the work, or you can clear v:8 normally from there. Most of my characters don't stairdance v:8 at all. | ||
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Cel.erity
United States4890 Posts
Actually, this is probably my first ever death on V:8 at least since my early days of playing. | ||
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]343[
United States10328 Posts
My HOPr just entered lair, and guarding (all three) stairs to L:2 are... 4 Oklobs and an electric eel. I suppose I could just try to take the escape hatch down and see what happens, but... seriously wtf? (Also, my goal is to be able to cast buff spells for my orcs while wearing heavy armour; hopefully this'll work out eventually. Maybe I should just wear my plate for now, since I don't have any spells yet...) | ||
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crate
United States2474 Posts
You might be able to kill the oklobs if you sacrifice your army at them, not sure if that's a good idea. Otherwise if you're confident you can handle the rest of lair I would take the hatch down. To get past them on the way back you can either hatch back up or quaff invis and run past them (this will probably make your orcs fight the oklobs though), or teleport and then go upstairs. | ||
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