The Tavern

Hey ... after almost 2 years i returned for a few sessions and got drawn into the gargoyle play.

So i decided to roll an Earth-Elementalist.
The run is going fine so far ... bringing me into D:10 sofar.

I happened to pick up an artifact-weapon which makes me a bit uncertain if it is a longterm keeper.

I stumbled upon the +8 trident of Joeddy {freeze +Inv Str+4 Int+3 SInv}.

It somehow compliments with my +0 leather armor "Vowyduv"{Int+5 Stlth+}.

My question is:

Does this weapon suffice longterm (aiming for a 3+run) or do elemental staffs (or enhancer) work better on the long term? This guy is going Earth/fire and is sofar uncontested (just murdered a daemon vault on D:10 easily wit LRD only). Earth Magic is around 12 do far and fire going for 7.

Please assist.

I would like to supply a dump but i play the tiles on underhound via tablet and am somehow unable to access the morgue here at work through proxy.

Thanks alot and thanks to the dev ... the game is still great and hard as hell

never mind .. a spiny frog respawn on lair 2 stairs just made the question obsolete ... coming up the stairs after evading 2 miserable tps involving multiple elefants with 15hp ... and *bam* there goes the gargoyle ..

theorethical answer would still be nice

Your Garg was supposed to be a caster with a weapon used for popcorn/mopping up ?

In that case: excellent weapon
The resists/stat-bonus are very good.

If damage output from a trident+8 isn't good enough: after shoals/depths you should be able to get a demon trident. Brand it - enchant it with all of your enchant weapon scrolls (which you haven't used up to then) and you have a weapon which is very suitable for even more runes (especially on a caster).
Whatever you invest into polearms (for mindelay) won't be wasted.

It is up to you whether you want to use a shield or wield an enhancer staff whenever you need it.
The weapon was fine - especially in Lair where freeze is very useful.

I used the trident only as a stat-weapon ... rarely poking anything ...

buckler was present with 5+ skill
all skills were basic ones besides magic skills ... literally LRD'd my path through any foe .. supported by fireball and late bolt of fire

.. but in the end bad rng (elefants.. elefants) and unfortunate popup of a minor creature cost me the game .. ok stupidity as well most likely

The weapon used mainly as a stat-enhancer (with SINV * and * INV ) is hard to top.
+8 and freeze is icing on the cake.
You don't even need much skill investment to kill with that weapon.
Unlikely that you'll get such a weapon that early again in your next game

Your death:
Developing a sense for estimating the threat level of a situation and still keeping a safe line of retreat in case something goes wrong (which will happen sooner or later) is something which comes with experience (I think).
Always expect the worst and become paranoid when playing

always expect a mean monster sitting next to the stairs on a cleared level

It's easier to treat getting to 15 HP as death sentence and your play will be better IMHO. The character was killed by elephants, not by frog. Make sure you start retreating before your HP drops below 60-70% (as caster), in some fights you should start retreating at 100% without casting any spells because terrain is too bad (elephant pack can potentially make you unable to retreat upstairs).

the funny thing is that elefants only forced me upstairs .. a particular resisting frog combined with running out of mana and magic pots made me port out into the midst of the elefant horde and going up the nearby stairs ... there i ran into the frog that stung me to death ... well next time i will murder any reptile and frogbeing with prejudice

Oh, then another advice probably can be more useful. Don't wait for 0 MP before running away, make sure you have some left in case something bad happens. Having both low HP and low MP is double error IMHO.

i will heed that advice .. thank you

This is especially true for EE since you mostly only have a rather weak nuke that can miss or petrify. Nuking something dead is pretty MP intensive especially if it misses. I feel its much easier to "stay safe" on an IE or Su start because you can basically say to yourselves "ok I have 8/20 MP so that is two ice beasts, if this gets bad we run and keep something in reserve" two ice beast probably enough to kill a spiny frog but if its not it is enough to delay it so you can run. But two missed throw icicles instead (which can happen) and you are screwed. Also this situation is much easier if you are Sif Muna.