Slime Squisher
Posts: 419
Joined: Monday, 12th September 2016, 16:25
Sunday, 30th August 2020, 23:43
YAVP: 0.23ish 5-rune CeTm of Trog
http://crawl.montres.org.uk/morgue/dame ... 113043.txt
Having now won every species, I'm onto random combos (not "random viable") and taking the first god I like the look of. Apparently winning a spriggan used up all my Crawl-playing brain for a bit, because I staggered through 8 deaths some of which were downright embarrassing and none of which got as far as Lair.
I did resolve to try and play this CeTm straight, using Beastly Appendage and UC, and training up to Sticks to Snakes - but after passing up Gozag (won recently), Ely (didn't seem ideal), and Nemelex (rework planned) on D:2 (where Jessica had me at 1 HP, so this nearly wasn't a win), Trog turned up on D:4.
I was running from a gnoll pack at the time and took Trog immediately - stupid, because you don't get Berserk immediately - but a weapon-and-ammo gifting god works fine on Ce and for much of the game I was hurting for MR and got good mileage out of Trog's Hand. Because I mostly used bows this did make for an odd-looking Trog game which used Berserk only 12 times.
I bought a fairly decent shortbow on D:5 but even so, the transition from UC+Appendage to Bows was painful for a few levels. Somewhere around Orc (which I did first) Trog spat out a longbow of flaming, though, and then it was pretty easy going.
After Lair I bought a +4 ring mail of magic resistance in an antique armour shop which I'd use nearly all game. I was very short of MR, and with Ce being Deformed, I didn't care so much about my armour's base AC. I'd then find a centaur barding on D:12 and from then on my defences were reasonably solid in spite of lacking a shield and Ce's rotten apts. Of course, having huge HP and nothing being able to get close helps.
On D:14 I acquired the storm bow. This was a mistake - one of the other choices was an excellent randart scarf with {Ward, rN+ MR+ Regen+ Str+5 Dex-3}, and while I'd taken a cloak of invisibility off Maurice I could have used this - and I took the storm bow under the mistaken impression it had penetration, but that's in 0.24.
On D:15 I then had acquirement offer me a +8 longbow with {freeze, Str+5}, a +1 centaur barding of cold resistance (and I was very short of rF and rC this game; even in Zot I was going around without either when not actually fighting orbs of fire), and a manual of Dodging; I agonised over this but took the bow, which was a mainstay of mine all game.
On Spider:2 Trog gifted me a +9 longbow with {velocity, rPois rN+} - very nice for someone just going through Spider and Swamp and served for the rest of the game as an rPois swap and a weapon for very cold-resistant targets. Nikola turned up, but I had resistance potions so no trouble there.
Spider and Swamp went by with no difficulty after that. I went to Elf, clearing Elf:1; I got rotten choices from acquirement and took the gold. I'd been thinking for a while I'd like a solid melee weapon for berserking, and that getting some melee skill would make Trog gift me something, so at this point I bought a manual of Polearms to make getting the skill cheap. (As it happened, while I brought along a Trog-gifted antimagic halberd, I barely used it; my main polearm was a +9 glaive of flaming I got in the Hall of Blades and enchanted up).
I cleared out the rest of Elf without too much trouble, getting a ring with {rElec rPois Int-4 *Curse} which I'd use to patch up resistance holes for a bit.
To the Vaults! Here I acquired a second manual of Polearms, then bought a scroll of acquirement for 1,040 gold pieces which offered me 4,730 gold; I took this and bought a 3,000 gold randart armour in O:2 I never expected to afford, which turned out to be +1 pearl dragon scales with {rN+ MR+ Dex+2 Stlth+}, a nice upgrade from my trusty ring mail.
Vaults was going well enough I decided I'd go straight to V:5, hatching down into it. This was mostly OK apart from being Abyssed to A:5 by an ancient lich; I got a rune vault full of malmutators and eyes, had a few nervous moments, mutrouletted out blurry vision, and escaped with the rune to remonstrate with the lich. I was at one point on 56/228 HP (overconfidence involving another ancient lich and a titan) but cleared it OK and got the rune - along with the necklace of Bloodlust, which neatly solved my MR problems, gave a nice Slay+6, and which I didn't care about the *Rage on because any time I wielded a melee weapon I was planning to berserk anyway.
On U:1 I acquired a +3 hat with {rElec rN++ Str+2} which was nice but replaced a helmet of intelligence - fortunately at this point I didn't really want the {rElec rPois Int-4 *Curse} anymore, because that would have left me at Int 2.
I got into a serious tangle with the Enchantress (and her escorts) who went invisible - I still had no good source of SInv - getting down to 59/238 - but I teleported away somewhere safe. She dropped the +4 faerie dragon scales {rCorr Str+4} which tempted me briefly just because it's so rare they're any use at all - but U:1 also game me a +9 plate with {Dex+4 Stlth+} and since Bloodlust had cured my MR problems, after a bit I recognised this just gave much better defences than any other option.
I cleared out the rest of Depths without too much trouble; I now had 4 runes but this character looked pretty strong and, while my rotten rF/rC would rule out Cocytus and Gehenna, it seemed like my whopping damage output might do well in Dis. I immediately came close to losing the game by zipping into the Vestibule of Hell without buffing up first, but managed to get out alive.
I made my way down Dis in one attempt, relying heavily on Trog's Hand to save me from waiting around for HP while hell effects took HP away again. The first iron giants on Dis:7 got a bit hairy but then I was used to them and didn't have too much trouble after that. The Serpent of Hell turned up near Dispater's chamber; I hasted and, while it managed to summon a quicksilver dragon just before it died which unhasted me, it went down in a hail of arrows just fine.
Dispater was harder to kill with arrows, so I dumped a Brother in Arms, a box beast (I'd been taking a lot of Evo), and some hell beasts from the Horn of Geryon on him, following them up with my glaive, and that polished him off.
To Zot! Well, as ever, to buy all the consumables. To Zot!
I didn't clear Zot - I had all the stuff and skills I wanted, and with a very limited supply of resistance potions and one plain ring of fire resistance, I didn't want to go looking around the rest of Zot for extra OOFs to fight. I saw one on Z:1 anyway, but shot it to bits without trouble. I only had to clear a few drac packs on the rest of Z:1-4. I found my one and only wand of digging here, which at least let me make a shortcut on Z:5.
Z:5, thankfully, had mostly ancient liches and only one orb of fire - I had brought a large supply of scrolls of silence, so could deal with the liches without difficulty. I tried the antimagic halberd on the OOF, which was OK, but no better than the bow and with the major downside of being slowed after the berserk. It gave me frail 1, which I mutrouletted out getting rMut, MR+, EV+2.
Z:5 ran out of ancient liches before I ran out of scrolls of silence. Orb Guardians were not a problem at all - Ce is as fast as them (ish) so you can back up without letting them close the range, and they're not that robust; I was very satisfied to one-shot one of them. I grabbed the Orb and hasted; now, the orbrun is never going to be that bad on Ce, who can just canter away from a lot of stuff that other characters would have to fight, but I didn't even see a single panlord.
Having now won every species, I'm onto random combos (not "random viable") and taking the first god I like the look of. Apparently winning a spriggan used up all my Crawl-playing brain for a bit, because I staggered through 8 deaths some of which were downright embarrassing and none of which got as far as Lair.
I did resolve to try and play this CeTm straight, using Beastly Appendage and UC, and training up to Sticks to Snakes - but after passing up Gozag (won recently), Ely (didn't seem ideal), and Nemelex (rework planned) on D:2 (where Jessica had me at 1 HP, so this nearly wasn't a win), Trog turned up on D:4.
I was running from a gnoll pack at the time and took Trog immediately - stupid, because you don't get Berserk immediately - but a weapon-and-ammo gifting god works fine on Ce and for much of the game I was hurting for MR and got good mileage out of Trog's Hand. Because I mostly used bows this did make for an odd-looking Trog game which used Berserk only 12 times.
I bought a fairly decent shortbow on D:5 but even so, the transition from UC+Appendage to Bows was painful for a few levels. Somewhere around Orc (which I did first) Trog spat out a longbow of flaming, though, and then it was pretty easy going.
After Lair I bought a +4 ring mail of magic resistance in an antique armour shop which I'd use nearly all game. I was very short of MR, and with Ce being Deformed, I didn't care so much about my armour's base AC. I'd then find a centaur barding on D:12 and from then on my defences were reasonably solid in spite of lacking a shield and Ce's rotten apts. Of course, having huge HP and nothing being able to get close helps.
On D:14 I acquired the storm bow. This was a mistake - one of the other choices was an excellent randart scarf with {Ward, rN+ MR+ Regen+ Str+5 Dex-3}, and while I'd taken a cloak of invisibility off Maurice I could have used this - and I took the storm bow under the mistaken impression it had penetration, but that's in 0.24.
On D:15 I then had acquirement offer me a +8 longbow with {freeze, Str+5}, a +1 centaur barding of cold resistance (and I was very short of rF and rC this game; even in Zot I was going around without either when not actually fighting orbs of fire), and a manual of Dodging; I agonised over this but took the bow, which was a mainstay of mine all game.
On Spider:2 Trog gifted me a +9 longbow with {velocity, rPois rN+} - very nice for someone just going through Spider and Swamp and served for the rest of the game as an rPois swap and a weapon for very cold-resistant targets. Nikola turned up, but I had resistance potions so no trouble there.
Spider and Swamp went by with no difficulty after that. I went to Elf, clearing Elf:1; I got rotten choices from acquirement and took the gold. I'd been thinking for a while I'd like a solid melee weapon for berserking, and that getting some melee skill would make Trog gift me something, so at this point I bought a manual of Polearms to make getting the skill cheap. (As it happened, while I brought along a Trog-gifted antimagic halberd, I barely used it; my main polearm was a +9 glaive of flaming I got in the Hall of Blades and enchanted up).
I cleared out the rest of Elf without too much trouble, getting a ring with {rElec rPois Int-4 *Curse} which I'd use to patch up resistance holes for a bit.
To the Vaults! Here I acquired a second manual of Polearms, then bought a scroll of acquirement for 1,040 gold pieces which offered me 4,730 gold; I took this and bought a 3,000 gold randart armour in O:2 I never expected to afford, which turned out to be +1 pearl dragon scales with {rN+ MR+ Dex+2 Stlth+}, a nice upgrade from my trusty ring mail.
Vaults was going well enough I decided I'd go straight to V:5, hatching down into it. This was mostly OK apart from being Abyssed to A:5 by an ancient lich; I got a rune vault full of malmutators and eyes, had a few nervous moments, mutrouletted out blurry vision, and escaped with the rune to remonstrate with the lich. I was at one point on 56/228 HP (overconfidence involving another ancient lich and a titan) but cleared it OK and got the rune - along with the necklace of Bloodlust, which neatly solved my MR problems, gave a nice Slay+6, and which I didn't care about the *Rage on because any time I wielded a melee weapon I was planning to berserk anyway.
On U:1 I acquired a +3 hat with {rElec rN++ Str+2} which was nice but replaced a helmet of intelligence - fortunately at this point I didn't really want the {rElec rPois Int-4 *Curse} anymore, because that would have left me at Int 2.
I got into a serious tangle with the Enchantress (and her escorts) who went invisible - I still had no good source of SInv - getting down to 59/238 - but I teleported away somewhere safe. She dropped the +4 faerie dragon scales {rCorr Str+4} which tempted me briefly just because it's so rare they're any use at all - but U:1 also game me a +9 plate with {Dex+4 Stlth+} and since Bloodlust had cured my MR problems, after a bit I recognised this just gave much better defences than any other option.
I cleared out the rest of Depths without too much trouble; I now had 4 runes but this character looked pretty strong and, while my rotten rF/rC would rule out Cocytus and Gehenna, it seemed like my whopping damage output might do well in Dis. I immediately came close to losing the game by zipping into the Vestibule of Hell without buffing up first, but managed to get out alive.
I made my way down Dis in one attempt, relying heavily on Trog's Hand to save me from waiting around for HP while hell effects took HP away again. The first iron giants on Dis:7 got a bit hairy but then I was used to them and didn't have too much trouble after that. The Serpent of Hell turned up near Dispater's chamber; I hasted and, while it managed to summon a quicksilver dragon just before it died which unhasted me, it went down in a hail of arrows just fine.
Dispater was harder to kill with arrows, so I dumped a Brother in Arms, a box beast (I'd been taking a lot of Evo), and some hell beasts from the Horn of Geryon on him, following them up with my glaive, and that polished him off.
To Zot! Well, as ever, to buy all the consumables. To Zot!
I didn't clear Zot - I had all the stuff and skills I wanted, and with a very limited supply of resistance potions and one plain ring of fire resistance, I didn't want to go looking around the rest of Zot for extra OOFs to fight. I saw one on Z:1 anyway, but shot it to bits without trouble. I only had to clear a few drac packs on the rest of Z:1-4. I found my one and only wand of digging here, which at least let me make a shortcut on Z:5.
Z:5, thankfully, had mostly ancient liches and only one orb of fire - I had brought a large supply of scrolls of silence, so could deal with the liches without difficulty. I tried the antimagic halberd on the OOF, which was OK, but no better than the bow and with the major downside of being slowed after the berserk. It gave me frail 1, which I mutrouletted out getting rMut, MR+, EV+2.
Z:5 ran out of ancient liches before I ran out of scrolls of silence. Orb Guardians were not a problem at all - Ce is as fast as them (ish) so you can back up without letting them close the range, and they're not that robust; I was very satisfied to one-shot one of them. I grabbed the Orb and hasted; now, the orbrun is never going to be that bad on Ce, who can just canter away from a lot of stuff that other characters would have to fight, but I didn't even see a single panlord.
Ascension reports with too many words since 2016.
