Hepliaklqana challenge completedd


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Swamp Slogger

Posts: 169

Joined: Tuesday, 25th October 2011, 00:06

Post Monday, 24th December 2018, 18:04

Hepliaklqana challenge completedd

So I decided to take another shot at the challenge I failed two years ago: win a game where all the kills are made by ancestor. And here you are:
https://underhound.eu/crawl/morgue/Yerm ... 142506.txt
  Code:
Vanquished Creatures (collateral kills)
...
4705 creatures vanquished.
Vanquished Creatures (others)
...
495 creatures vanquished.
Grand Total: 5200 creatures vanquished


I think the hardest part was the initial quest for the altar - diving through floors while running away from stuff. At first I tried SpAs, but then after a couple of fails when I successfully found Hep, but ancestor was sometimes too weak to handle even a quokka, I decided to switch to SpMo. My ancestor became Battlemage right upon worship, and things went much smoother. Why Battlemage and not the others? Well, given the circumstances, the only role I (my character) could fulfil in our small party is tank, so the obvious choice for the second participant would be damage dealer, i.e. Battlemage. Hexer is pure support, thus useless (monsters including ancestor can't stab), and Knight is also a tank. Sure it can unleash some damage but I suppose it's balanced away by this extra tankiness (this is theorycrafting, I played with Knight maybe once-twice right after Hep was released, I don't remember how his power feels like), plus range attack is of great value, which Knight doesn't have.

For challenge to feel "pure" I decided to impose extra limitations, like 'no other allies except the ancestor' and 'no affecting monsters in any way': no wands except digging, no hexing monsters, no moving monsters around with Translocations spells. I did use scrolls of fear early on to survive though, and I decided to use Aura of Abjuration, because it seemed annoyingly hard not to use it in certain circumstances. Oh, and also I carried nets and fan of gales just in case things go gloomy. They didn't, so I haven't used them.

Random highlights:
  • Suddenly your weapon is an extra slot for resistances or whatever (remember not to use artefact long blades though or you might get a kill through riposte). For the first part of the game I carried staff of power for extra 16 hp (with amulet of guardian spirit).
  • Thanks to the recent change now you don't waste extra time when you press '5' to wait for ancestor to heal up.
  • Probably the most annoying part of Hep gameplay (disregarding this particular challenge) is when you go upstairs just to wait for ancestor to respawn and it appears a tile away from you, so you have to press '.' before you can go downstairs again. And ancestor spawns one tile away from you 95% of the time.
  • I always try not to stay behind the monster being attacked by ancestor but still through the course of the game I've dodged several crystal spears. I queried Sequell with "!log * ckiller=battlemage" and it turns out there were only 14 deaths like that. And even then some of these deaths were caused not by ancestor's missile hitting the character but by exploding inner flame or ancestor being confused.
  • Vanquished Creatures (others) are usually monsters that die to stuff like dragon breath or bolt spells, mechanical traps in Tomb (I look at you, death scarabs), hell effects. And suddenly, 362 out of 495 creatures in this category are ... battlemagi!
  • I haven't mentioned it earlier but I went for 15 runes, just for the kicks. In my fight with Lom Lobon at one moment he had more than half of his hp, and then he was dead in a single press of '.': ancestor landed lcs at him and then a finishing hit with lajatang; this was impressive. Overall ancestor killed 4 out of 8 pan/hell bosses. I guess with enough patience I could have them all killed, but just stealing the rune sometimes was simpler.
If you spot a grammar mistake in my post I will appreciate if you PM it.

For this message the author Yermak has received thanks: 9
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Lair Larrikin

Posts: 15

Joined: Tuesday, 25th December 2018, 06:20

Post Tuesday, 25th December 2018, 06:22

Re: Hepliaklqana challenge completedd

Congratulations.

It's interesting that you have had most success with Battlemage. It definitely seems the strongest when you are running a full tank. Is it general consensus that Hexer is better for general use due to the ridiculous utility of paralyze, mass confusion, and drain? Or is it possible the commentary on the Crawl Wiki about Battlemage falling off in the mid to late game since it needs LOS is way overstated?
Last edited by Olliff on Saturday, 29th December 2018, 05:53, edited 1 time in total.
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Snake Sneak

Posts: 111

Joined: Saturday, 10th March 2018, 18:00

Post Wednesday, 26th December 2018, 16:11

Re: Hepliaklqana challenge completedd

In my experience it really depends on what character you're playing, and that's really the whole point of Hep. Your ancestor can support whatever you are. If you, like most crawlers, are geared to deal damage, a Hexer can shut down whole crowds of enemies so you can carve through them. If you're squishy and need a tank, a Knight can tank for you (somewhat), and if you're tanky but can't deal much damage, the Battlemage can snipe for you and soften up enemies before you get in their face. This run in particular made unique use of the Battlemage as most crawlers won't be focused on tanking for their ancestor, it's usually the other way around.

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