YAVP: 5 rune (2 Pan runes) HEAM^Oka

[damerell]

http://crawl.montres.org.uk/morgue/dame ... 002949.txt

AM done, meaning I've now won every background. I have already splatted an octopode, putting me back on my regular no-streak. It took me about a dozen HEAMs and one GnAM to get this one home; not great going, and I nearly lost this game several times.

Oddly, one of those times was not on meeting a yak pack on D:5, which I dealt with without too much trouble. I'd already taken Oka on D:2 (first sensible god to turn up) so netted a decent amount of piety there; and as a result of taking Oka so early, I'd hit ****** on Lair:2.

I had Portal Projectile online very soon which I'd use all game to single out particular nuisances like curse skulls, but I didn't run it most of the time because I had better use for my MP.

Lair was resonably easy with Conjure Flame and then Fireball online, and on Lair:6 Oka served up a +7 longbow of venom with rElec. Thanks, Oka!

I had terrible trouble with naga sharpshooters in Snake, and later with yaktaurs almost all the time until getting Deflect Missiles online. Light armour and no shield is a fair exchange for being able to kill most things before they can get into melee, but these aren't most things; Snake:2 was a unique party with Frances, Azrael, Agnes, and Vashnia; of these, Vashnia was by far the closest to killing me.

I really hate Shoals so, having got Four Winds in Snake, did Elf next secure in my huge MR. All very well, but "HP: 5/135 [deep elf annihilator/crystal spear (42)]" - I could easily have lost it there. I got enough gold to speculatively buy a randart leather from an antique shop on O:2 - +3, with {rElec N+ Str+5}, which would serve me all game.

After that Shoals was not too bad - Fireballs served to block LOS and boil merfolk. Down Vaults, learning Irradiate. V:4 had XTAHUA and Frederick, and an opportunity to make the usual mistake of optimistically going straight to V:5 to blow it up with immolation and brilliance-cast Ignition. Usual story, cleared the welcoming committee but that isn't the hard part; took some huge melee hits off a titan, teleported around in a panic, quaffed all my heal wounds, but survived (and lucky me, there were some more to buy). Oka gave me a +11 longbow with {venom, rC+ Str+3 Int+4} which I'd use until the supply of poisonable monsters mostly dried up - and a +9 claymore of speed which I'd tote around Zot just in case of being berserked by moths of wrath.

Depths next, then Crypt (curse skulls, Mennas, Sojobo, and Mara all suspiciously easy), and then to think about extended runes. I worked through a lot of random Pan levels (where Oka served up a scarf with {rC+ rF+, rCorr Dex+2}, handy since I was using a plain scarf of resistance) before hitting Cerebov; Cerebov gave me real trouble with the first two Fire Storms but I blinked out to a better position and took them down without too much trouble after that. I was happy enough to go to Zot at that point, but hit Mnoleg's level before finding a way out; this was fine but overconfidence meant I nearly splatted on Abyss:1.

I bought all the consumables and went to Zot. A combination of orbs of destruction and Finesse dealt with orbs of fire and ancient lichen; the only real trouble was two OOFs turning up at once. I got shafted for two levels in Zot on the orbrun (a first), evaded a seraph, and saw two panlords of which I killed one and evaded one.

I'd learned and trained up Tornado but hardly used it. Still, nice to have it as an option.

[Sprucery]

I'd learned and trained up Tornado but hardly used it. Still, nice to have it as an option.

So you could afford training Air to 27 for 4 casts of Tornado, nice.
Okawaru's gifts are often joked about, but you get a lot of them and some of them are always great.

[damerell]

I'd learned and trained up Tornado but hardly used it. Still, nice to have it as an option.

So you could afford training Air to 27 for 4 casts of Tornado, nice.
Okawaru's gifts are often joked about, but you get a lot of them and some of them are always great.

I was very much playing to HE's aptitudes (and of course there's a lot of XP in a 2-rune trip to Pan), but I often find I've trained up something I don't then use much - I want to have an alternative if my usual approach doesn't work well, but the situation doesn't arise. Next on my list would have been Evo (it's already at 17 or so) - not that I'd start by popping out box beasts, but I might well do so in a crisis.