Shoals Surfer
Posts: 321
Joined: Friday, 17th December 2010, 02:21
CIP: VSBe speedrun
My fastest first rune ever (8.5k turns), but now I'm scared of going forward.
The second Lair rune would be Shoals, but I'm very wary of going there, especially since my only source of flight is a single potion. My previous best online speedrun attempt ended in Shoals to a water nymph (a very preventable death, admittedly). Also lack of flight could be a problem when navigating the branch: this being a speedrun, I don't want to spend a few hundred turns mashing 5 waiting for the tide to go down so I can reach the next strairs. At least I have enough MR that the goddamn sirens (easily the worst enemy in Crawl, now that curse skulls have been reverted to immobility) are not an issue (inb4 I die to a siren).
What would a speedrunner that knows his shit do here? Toss aside such ridiculous worries and charge into Shoals? Do Orc first (which I have yet to locate) hoping to find something useful in one of the stores? Give up on Shoals and go for the abyssal rune (lol)?
Assorted advice and criticism also welcome.