Slime Squisher
Posts: 419
Joined: Monday, 12th September 2016, 16:25
Thursday, 12th January 2023, 13:54
YA2shortVP: VpMo^Sif (5 w. Dis), GrAr^TSO (6, Tomb 3rd)
https://crawl.montres.org.uk/morgue/dam ... 135644.txt
Going Sif on a character with no spells? Well, I hadn't won with Sif since 2017, and I suppose at some point I'll have to think about the 0.24 changes.
I took Sif from a D:5 Temple; it was Lair:2 when they started to serve up books giving me some low-level spells I might actually _cast_, and then on Lair:4 I found a +7 tower shield (with {+Fly rPois Dex+2 Stlth+}) so I really didn't get a lot of divine benefits in the early game, especially given the Lair was on D:11.
I'd learn, in about this order, Airstrike (used a chunk as my only damaging spell and then intermittently to smite flying nuisances), Infusion (turned MP into murder until I had better uses for MP), Shroud of Golubria and Ozo's Armour (all game), Blink, Throw Frost (generic better-than-nothing ranged poke), Regeneration, Insulation, Irradiate, Yara's, Magic Dart (cheaper poke, then to cycle Isk's Battlesphere), Aura of Abjuration, Isk's Battlesphere, Statue Form (used a bunch in Hell)... and Dragon's Call, which is one reason there's not much in the way of big-ticket Conjurations.
I was really pleased to find the Thermic Engine in Depths; I've splatted with it before (on a vampire, no less) but never won with it. I'd use it all game.
My one extended rune was Dis. The Serpent of Hell turned up there and I very nearly died more than once; the Serpent hits like a freight train and, it turned out, could both summon and abjure dragons more effectively than I could. After that, Dispater was child's play.
Zot also didn't cause any serious difficulties - some orbs of fire and ancient liches, but they're no good at being covered in dragons. Two panlords on the orb run but I evaded both. I killed some chaff on D:1 to, pleasingly, just hit 27 Summonings.
https://crawl.montres.org.uk/morgue/dam ... 183411.txt
This was very unusual for me in that I cast no spells. OK, I did get Trog from a faded altar on D:2, but even after abandoning Trog for TSO I didn't, mostly because I found the scales of the Dragon King on E:3. As a result I'd master Fighting, Armour, Shields, and Invo. Evo lagged; for all I started as a GrAr (well, the RNG decided I would), Gr's Evo apt isn't great and hitting monsters with sharp objects seemed to get things done; even orbs of fire could be contained with the antimagic broadsword.
I should probably have converted to TSO before doing the Crypt, but it was the Crypt being so manageable that gave me the idea of going TSO and doing Tomb as my 3rd rune. I did the opening part of Tomb:1 but then cleared Depths to mollify Trog (and, as it turned out, kill enough demons and undead to fill up TSO piety). Tomb was surprisingly controllable - I just teleported immediately out of the Tomb:2 ambush - except that the corridor of bastards on Tomb:1 had an incredible number of greater mummies packed into its ends; just after arriving I had seven greater mummies on the screen which was about six more than I wanted to fight at once, and this drained me of a bunch of holy words and heal wounds. (Well, really it was seven more than I _wanted_ to fight...)
After that I hit V:5, Abyss, and Slime, but then it seemed like six runes was enough. Zot wasn't too bad apart from an unwise (stupid) decision to go in a transporter vault... until I got to Z:5 where I was greeted with three orbs of fire. I went back upstairs, tried another staircase, but they came straight over to say hello; pretty worrying but with haste+might I sorted them out. Then I hit another cluster of three OOFs in the lungs; OOFs heavily drain stats in Stoat Soup rather than malmutate, and I was worried about brainlessness to the extent that, well, I'm carrying 11 brilliances even though I know no spells.
Once that was over the rest was routine - one panlord on the orbrun, evaded.
Going Sif on a character with no spells? Well, I hadn't won with Sif since 2017, and I suppose at some point I'll have to think about the 0.24 changes.
I took Sif from a D:5 Temple; it was Lair:2 when they started to serve up books giving me some low-level spells I might actually _cast_, and then on Lair:4 I found a +7 tower shield (with {+Fly rPois Dex+2 Stlth+}) so I really didn't get a lot of divine benefits in the early game, especially given the Lair was on D:11.
I'd learn, in about this order, Airstrike (used a chunk as my only damaging spell and then intermittently to smite flying nuisances), Infusion (turned MP into murder until I had better uses for MP), Shroud of Golubria and Ozo's Armour (all game), Blink, Throw Frost (generic better-than-nothing ranged poke), Regeneration, Insulation, Irradiate, Yara's, Magic Dart (cheaper poke, then to cycle Isk's Battlesphere), Aura of Abjuration, Isk's Battlesphere, Statue Form (used a bunch in Hell)... and Dragon's Call, which is one reason there's not much in the way of big-ticket Conjurations.
I was really pleased to find the Thermic Engine in Depths; I've splatted with it before (on a vampire, no less) but never won with it. I'd use it all game.
My one extended rune was Dis. The Serpent of Hell turned up there and I very nearly died more than once; the Serpent hits like a freight train and, it turned out, could both summon and abjure dragons more effectively than I could. After that, Dispater was child's play.
Zot also didn't cause any serious difficulties - some orbs of fire and ancient liches, but they're no good at being covered in dragons. Two panlords on the orb run but I evaded both. I killed some chaff on D:1 to, pleasingly, just hit 27 Summonings.
https://crawl.montres.org.uk/morgue/dam ... 183411.txt
This was very unusual for me in that I cast no spells. OK, I did get Trog from a faded altar on D:2, but even after abandoning Trog for TSO I didn't, mostly because I found the scales of the Dragon King on E:3. As a result I'd master Fighting, Armour, Shields, and Invo. Evo lagged; for all I started as a GrAr (well, the RNG decided I would), Gr's Evo apt isn't great and hitting monsters with sharp objects seemed to get things done; even orbs of fire could be contained with the antimagic broadsword.
I should probably have converted to TSO before doing the Crypt, but it was the Crypt being so manageable that gave me the idea of going TSO and doing Tomb as my 3rd rune. I did the opening part of Tomb:1 but then cleared Depths to mollify Trog (and, as it turned out, kill enough demons and undead to fill up TSO piety). Tomb was surprisingly controllable - I just teleported immediately out of the Tomb:2 ambush - except that the corridor of bastards on Tomb:1 had an incredible number of greater mummies packed into its ends; just after arriving I had seven greater mummies on the screen which was about six more than I wanted to fight at once, and this drained me of a bunch of holy words and heal wounds. (Well, really it was seven more than I _wanted_ to fight...)
After that I hit V:5, Abyss, and Slime, but then it seemed like six runes was enough. Zot wasn't too bad apart from an unwise (stupid) decision to go in a transporter vault... until I got to Z:5 where I was greeted with three orbs of fire. I went back upstairs, tried another staircase, but they came straight over to say hello; pretty worrying but with haste+might I sorted them out. Then I hit another cluster of three OOFs in the lungs; OOFs heavily drain stats in Stoat Soup rather than malmutate, and I was worried about brainlessness to the extent that, well, I'm carrying 11 brilliances even though I know no spells.
Once that was over the rest was routine - one panlord on the orbrun, evaded.
Ascension reports with too many words since 2016.