YAVP - Spriggan of Qazlal

[CanOfWorms]

  Code:

 Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup version 0.20-a0-277-g7db01f4 (webtiles) character file.

1385441 wormsofcant the Acrobat (level 27, 151/151 HPs)
             Began as a Spriggan Earth Elementalist on Nov 30, 2016.
             Was the Champion of Qazlal.
             Escaped with the Orb
             ... and 3 runes on Dec 11, 2016!
             
             The game lasted 06:23:54 (121021 turns).

wormsofcant the Acrobat (SpEE)                    Turns: 121021, Time: 06:23:54

Health: 151/151    AC: 12    Str:  6    XL:     27
Magic:  58/58      EV: 39    Int: 27    God:    Qazlal [******]
Gold:   550        SH: 20    Dex: 24    Spells: 2/68 levels left

rFire  + + .      SeeInvis +    b - +0 rod of shadows (14/14)
rCold  . . .      Gourm    .    Y - +2 robe of Eternal Night {rF+ Dex+7}
rNeg   . . .      Faith    +    G - +3 buckler {AC+3}
rPois  +          Spirit   .    X - +2 hat {MR+}
rElec  .          Reflect  .    B - +2 cloak {rPois}
rCorr  .          Harm     .    (gloves unavailable)
MR     +++++      Rnd*Rage +    (boots unavailable)
Stlth  +.........               q - amulet of faith
                                P - ring of protection from fire
                                w - ring of magical power


https://crawl.jorgrun.rocks/morgue/worm ... 022210.txt

This is my third attempt at ascending a Spriggan of Qazlal. My first attempt was few years ago in 0.15 offline where I made it to Zot:5, but got killed by a Killer Klown due to inexperience. Recently I tried to ascend a SpEn^Q but the game got lost to a server move, and finally, FINALLY I've secured the first(!!!) online Sp^Q win. There have been two notable Sp^Q splats in extended before me, though.

Originally I thought that En was the best start for a Sp^Q because the toolkit you get (Confuse/Tukima's Dance/Dazzling Spray) helps shake off a large majority of enemies, as well giving good damage/MP returns from stabs, but with the recent changes to Petrify (allowing you to get paralyze tier stabs off petrified monsters), I think EE is the best start thanks to it giving you some tools to handle high MR monsters without having to rely on Qazlal's invocations, as well as a few good branching points for the end game (Tmut for access to forms, or Conj/Earth for higher damage spells).

One thing I noticed is that monsters were surprisingly bad at finding me despite all the noise I made. If the layout is windy enough you'll just hear the shouts from monsters trying to find you but they'll have trouble actually reaching you.

[edgefigaro]

Reminds me of my stormkitty win. That game was awful.

Congrats!

Questions: How useful was lategame lightning spire?

Summon Lightning | | | | | | | | 20 | 4 || 24

Why so much upheaval and so little disaster area?

Invok: Upheaval | | | | | 10 | 38 | 31 | 39 | 15 || 133
Disaster Area | | | | | 2 | | | | || 2

In comparison, my stormkitty, where I thought i underused invocations in general looked like this.

Invok: Upheaval | | | | 3 | 16 | 2 | 6 | || 27
Elemental Force | | | | 5 | 1 | 2 | | || 8
Disaster Area | | | | | 4 | 8 | 15 | || 27

I ain't saying one way is right or wrong, but my understanding is that DA is much better damage/piety and damage/MP. DA needs to be set up though controlling LOS so all the explosions spawn where the enemies are. Upheaval is much more straightforward. Stormkitty wanted to isolate and pick off monsters 1 at a time. If a mob was isolated, I didn't need to spend piety to bring it down. Maybe I could have gotten more milage out of qaz, but it really played against my racial strengths and restrictions.

The EE background for petrify stabs is clever. +1.

Stab: Sleeping | 4 | 12 | | | | | | | || 16
Distracted | | 1 | | | 1 | | 6 | 3 | 3 || 14
Petrifying | | 1 | 5 | 36 | 60 | 65 | 46 | 53 | 19 || 285

[torrenera]

Hi, I'd like to emulate you but I've never played a spriggan (and I'm playing DCSS since 0.8 or maybe earlier.... ^^).
May I ask you a couple of hints? Like: how do you play it, you do not rest as food will be scarce? You try to rush to zot? You raise spellcasting that much for hunger issues?
(yes, as you can see I'm primarly worried about dying from starvation... that's why I've never played a spriggan ).
Thanks,

[Siegurt]

Hi, I'd like to emulate you but I've never played a spriggan (and I'm playing DCSS since 0.8 or maybe earlier.... ^^).
May I ask you a couple of hints? Like: how do you play it, you do not rest as food will be scarce? You try to rush to zot? You raise spellcasting that much for hunger issues?
(yes, as you can see I'm primarly worried about dying from starvation... that's why I've never played a spriggan ).
Thanks,

The answer for "how to deal with food" is the same with spriggans as it is for everyone else "eat when hungry, pick up food you can eat"

It really just is that uncomplicated. In order to actually die of starvation you have to do a bunch of stuff that is bad, and mostly contrived or obsessively weird, for example i dont feel like "dont travel back to the dungeon entrance after every kill" is advice that needs to be given, but maybe someone heard you needed to do that and that is why they are starving to death or something.

[Sprucery]

With a spriggan you can train spellcasting a bit higher than you would with other species. Resting is not a problem, as you hardly consume any food anyway.

[VeryAngryFelid]

In order to actually die of starvation you have to cast spells like you do with standard species

FTFY

[Siegurt]

In order to actually die of starvation you have to cast spells like you do with standard species

FTFY

Maybe you have to cast spells like *you* do with standard species, i have never come even close myself.

[VeryAngryFelid]

Maybe you have to cast spells like *you* do with standard species, i have never come even close myself.

I wonder how many chunks you eat during normal game. This is my normal caster game. http://crawl.berotato.org/crawl/morgue/ ... 031809.txt
As you can see I ate 326 chunks during 91k turn. 182 (2*91k/1000) chunks went to just compensate difference between Sp and Op so I spent 144 chunks on spellcasting and melee. That's 24 bread rations for Sp, 144 casts of level 9 spells with 0 spellcasting, for example (despite I haven't learned any level 7+ spells in that game). Also I was sure I could spam those spells instead of playing "let's just kill it with melee despite having full MP and being a caster" mini-game.

[CanOfWorms]

Reminds me of my stormkitty win. That game was awful.

Congrats!

Questions: How useful was lategame lightning spire?

Summon Lightning | | | | | | | | 20 | 4 || 24

It was okay, it mostly works as a blocker and get some occasional damage if I have other summons up.

Why so much upheaval and so little disaster area?

Invok: Upheaval | | | | | 10 | 38 | 31 | 39 | 15 || 133
Disaster Area | | | | | 2 | | | | || 2

In comparison, my stormkitty, where I thought i underused invocations in general looked like this.

Invok: Upheaval | | | | 3 | 16 | 2 | 6 | || 27
Elemental Force | | | | 5 | 1 | 2 | | || 8
Disaster Area | | | | | 4 | 8 | 15 | || 27

I ain't saying one way is right or wrong, but my understanding is that DA is much better damage/piety and damage/MP. DA needs to be set up though controlling LOS so all the explosions spawn where the enemies are. Upheaval is much more straightforward. Stormkitty wanted to isolate and pick off monsters 1 at a time. If a mob was isolated, I didn't need to spend piety to bring it down. Maybe I could have gotten more milage out of qaz, but it really played against my racial strengths and restrictions.

Basically I never got into a situation (with one exception below) that required using Disaster Area.There were usually a low enough number of enemies that I could just Upheaval a few times to soften them up. If I did Vaults:5 I might have used it some more?

If you watch the ttyrec, I used the Disaster Area in Lair:6 because the end vault was right next to two staircases so the entire vault emptied out to me when I came down, it was ridiculous how many enemies were on screen at that point in time. You see those 40 wolves in kill list? I'm pretty sure at least 20 of them were killed in the Disaster Area on Lair:6. Otherwise I used Upheaval as a smite targeted attack whenever there were a group of enemies bunched together or a specific dangerous monster not near a wall.