First Online Win - Any advice for more advanced wins?

[Olliff]

Managed to score my first online win and .025 version win (11th win overall) with a self imposed challenge that all sighted orb of fires must be killed. I have won 5 runes (abyss + ooze(was considerably tougher than abyss). Despite this success, I don't consider myself an expert even though I do on other games with similar win due to the modular win(only need 3 of the many available runes) conditions for this game, especially compared to that guy with 25+ in a row max rune wins. I feel that I have a lot to learn and even more to explore. Just this game I encountered some new never before seen holy enemies despite all of my runs.

I haven't even tried and died in any of these other optional dungeons. Ooze and abyss I got on my first try, but I have died in abyss before due to banish. I think it is partially my risk averse nature and lack of knowledge of the options dungeons of not wanting to lower my win rate. This escape was a bit sketchy since the orbs kept giving me berserkitis,teleportitis and frail. The most notable thing about this run was high dex and access to high enchantment bonus platemail artefacts along with high investment in dodge and throwing weapons(150+ silver javelins helps too!). I didn't know you could kill orbs of fire with javelins, but I did have max throwing with heroism - something I have never done before.

Despite not a lack of trying, I have also never won as a primary spellcaster(50+) despite having a melee win rate around 50%. I have tried many, but the most common was gargoyle EE. Another odd thing is I faced a bunch of holy units on my orb run. Many that I have never seen before.

This is odd since it most traditional roguelikes like adom, tome, etc. I have only won as spell casters. I think part may because casters are so frail here, and you don't get crazy versatility compared to other games like teleport any where on the map or true on demand invisibility. Another thing is melee in this game gets access to spells through wands and scrolls with extremely powerful effects, and can actually melee down huge threats like orbs of fire without facing certain suicide assuming f++ or f+++.

Any advice on on what extra runes to take based on difficulty and risks? Pandemodium seems like the most scary, and crypts the least assuming some N+ resist. How do these branches compare to zig difficulty? I have also wanted to try one as well. Also am I the only person who thinks repel/reflect missiles is absurdly powerful? I am always try to get one.

http://crawl.berotato.org/crawl/morgue/ ... 143746.txt



Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup version 0.25-b1-41-g1964123 (webtiles) character file.

Game seed: 4727046358447873923

1740337 olliff the Slayer (level 27, 264/264 HPs)
Began as a Minotaur Fighter on June 6, 2020.
Was the Champion of Okawaru.
Escaped with the Orb
... and 3 runes on June 8, 2020!

The game lasted 10:13:03 (71033 turns).

olliff the Slayer (Minotaur Fighter) Turns: 71033, Time: 10:13:04

Health: 264/264 AC: 44 Str: 33 XL: 27
Magic: 25/25 EV: 37 Int: 8 God: Okawaru [******]
Gold: 6076 SH: 35 Dex: 29 Spells: 23/28 levels left

rFire + + + SeeInvis + C - +9 war axe of the Wheel {vorpal, rF+ Int+6 Dex+3}
rCold . . . Gourm . U - +8 tower shield {rF+}
rNeg . . . Faith . K - +10 plate armour of Hospitality {rPois MR++ Regen+ Dex-2}
rPois + Spirit . G - +2 hat {MR+}
rElec + Reflect . F - +2 cloak {MR+}
rCorr . Harm . w - +2 pair of gloves {Dex+3}
MR +++++ Rnd*Rage + d - +2 pair of boots {run}
Stlth .......... W - amulet of the Air {Inacc +Fly rElec EV+5 RMsl}
HPRegen 0.94/turn A - ring of Coolieta {MR+ Int-3 Dex+6 Slay+2 SInv}
MPRegen 0.19/turn i - +6 ring of dexterity

@: studying Maces & Flails, repel missiles, quick
A: retaliatory headbutt, horns 2, repulsion field 1, thin skeletal structure 1,
berserk 1, fire resistance 1, screaming 1, electricity resistance
0: Orb of Zot
}: 3/15 runes: barnacled, silver, gossamer
a: Heroism, Finesse, Renounce Religion, Evoke Flight

[petercordia]

In terms of scariness, I think: Crypt < Hell (vestibule) < 1 or 2 Hell runes (intelligent branch picks) < all pan runes < the other hell runes < Tomb (unless you have shatter + TSO + torment resistance, or some combo like that which makes Tomb easier).
For reference, bcrawl forces you to do pan with XL<27 which makes it still doable but much deadlier.

[Olliff]

Thanks for the input. I will try Crypt and potentially Hell Vesibule for my next run. How does zig compare or is it too variable to rank reliably in difficulty?

Torment resistance I assume is N+, not sure how to get shatter resistance. TSO is TheShiningOne I assume. Maybe, I can try gargoyle fighter.

[petercordia]

no, torment resistance is specific to gargoyle & statueform, and halves torment damage after the effect or rN+. There's also a few other variants of torment resistance around, through the unholy species and Kiku. Ideally you want torment resistance and rN+++ when you're expecting torment, though you often can't get that.

A zig is tricky to evaluate. The first couple of floors tend to be easy, and it gets increasingly hard. With most characters you can get to ~floor 15 if you have enough blink scrolls to evade truly scary floors. It takes a while to learn to recognise those scary floors though, and you're very likely to die in your first zig. Megaziggers tend to do the zig after 15 runes (as far as I'm aware) but there's also someone out there who likes to do Zigs before Zot even, with Firestorm & Deaths Door and things like that.