CIP - DrFE - choosing Zig way

[Owen]

Well, after two consecutive wins with DECj and MiFi my characters became unlucky (and I became too hasty and thoughtless) so I've died several times with different species and different backgrounds, all deaths really avoidable. And after a couple of tries I've decided to go for a win and started DrFE. On a second try I've survived long enough to become a real FE. Luckily my skin became mottled, so FireStorm proved to be useful in a later Lair. Suddenly I've understood that the most interesting part of gameplay for me is Zig diving. More, I want to try Zig not with vanilla FiSt-NecMut build but with some other build. Challenging build.

For example, hunter, a nice stout fighter with a long sturdy bow! Backuped by some spells, of course: I've got FireStorm (1%), IceStorm (2%), Shatter (2%), Haste (1%), CBlink (1%), NecroMut (8%), SummonDragon (2%) and LCS (1%) (and some minor spells like RMsl) just in case something will go in the wrong way. Yes, I've made one Zig already with the pure offensive mage build, but now I'm going to try it with a bow.

As usual, I'm asking some questions.
1. Which bow is better? I've found Piercer (+2,+10 longbow of velocity), I have a longbow (now +3,+6) of velocity and a plenty of EW 1-3 scrolls, so smth like +8,+8 is quite real. Arrows (about 1k of those) are enchanted to +8, don't want to spend more EW2 on them. My bow skill is about 20, btw.
2. I'm worshipping Vehumet right now. I feel very confident with him because of significantly lower fail rate and because of mana kill-refunding. But that's not a honest choice for a bowman. I thought about switching to Nemelex because I've collected a huge pile of precious staff and I really enjoy that "Tomb" card; some other cards seems to be useful too. Or maybe TSO (Pan will give me piety)? Or somebody else? Is there any god that will make me feel as confident as Vehumet does?
3. I feel that my defences are very poor actually. I have AC about 20 and EV about 27 or so without shield. I've got a shield of resistance, but it slows fire rate a lot. Is it possible to mitigate the penalty by SH skill? Or maybe for buckler?
4. Is it a must to have high Dex and/or Str? My Str is enough to carry as many arrows as I wish as well as some loot, and my Int for some reasons is quite high (37-38 with boosting equipment). Easy to guess that my Dex is quite poor...
5. Maybe you can offer me some more interesting concepts to try in Zig? The only problem is that I'm short on scrolls of amnesia, so it's quite hard for me to learn a completely different set of spells.

[Megika]

It's worth posting a dump for people to look at your character (press # ingame, then it's in your morgues file) if you want advice.

That being said, your character sounds like a wizard. There's no way, in my book, that a character with 37 int which can cast fire and ice storm, summon dragon, shatter and necromutation isn't primarily a caster

1. There's almost no difference between Piercer and a high enchantment longbow of velocity, since that's all Piercer is.
2. If you want to primarily be a bow-user and want to go for extended endgame (Pan/Hell/Tomb) TSO is quite a good option - longbows of holy wrath can do quite extreme damage. I've never played significantly with Nemelex.
3. I couldn't find any information about shield delay for bows on the learndb, but from memory you can't ever remove the penalties and you pretty much just shouldn't use a shield with a bow.
4. I don't know about this one; I know there's some different effects stats have on ranged combat, but I don't know how much dex you need.
5. Ziggs are really really hard, and their construction biases method selection heavily towards fire storm/ice storm. It's not that it's impossible to clear a Zig without either, just much harder; big open spaces make it hard for anyone who isn't a caster to deal with large groups enemies.

[Impy]

Bow + shield? Did i miss something?

[Owen]

As I wrote before, it's a quite complicated task for me to post a dump. I play offline on a PC without internet, network card, USB bus.
If you are interested in skills/attrs/items/whatsoever, feel free to ask.
Of course, since this char passed 1 zig already, he has cloak of preservation, boots of running, most spellbooks available. More, I've passed Tomb and all four Hells (experimentally; I've made it with 4 different main offenses - FS, IS, shatter/LCS and bow). So it's OK with extended; bow is quite hard but yet possible.

I'm interested in Zig. With both demonic/undead/mummy and spriggan/dragon/golem levels. So I must be sure that switching from Vehumet to TSO will grant enough firepower/lifesavers to save me against some weird challenges like mummy floor since necromutation is banned by TSO. OK, I can pass a couple of mummy floors via entombment, but other sources of torment?

More, my previous MiFi made a Zig with a blessed trishula and without FS/IS (but with heavy use of support spells like haste). So I have no illusions on what I'm going to face. And I know I have to be prepared very, very well.

In my experience, a strong MiFi of Nemelex should make Zig maybe even easier than MiFi of TSO because of a Tomb card. But I want something new so I'm asking are there any options left except expert offensive mage and an extremely tough pure melee fighter.

[Galefury]

Summoners with haunt and dragons can work I think. Some floors will be hard, but that's the case with every strategy. People have had fun with shatter + death channel (spectrals aren't hurt by shatter), but death channel doesn't really help much over pure shatter. Refrigeration works very well too. Bows can also work, they can do as much (or even more) damage as melee with the right stats, and that's the important part.

TSO is a double-edged thing in zigs: you wont have to deal with holy levels, but mummy floors will be much harder, and torment will also bother you on other levels. No ddoor/borgs also really hurts, but IIRC you can still cast those without being excommunicated (you better test in wizmode to be sure). Penance is not so bad in zigs, it can be removed quickly.

[Owen]

So bow in Zig without right stats is impossible no matter which god to pick?

This character already finished one zig with a strong magic (fire storm, LCS, necromutation). I want to try another way; OK, you say it's impossible with a bow - I'll give a try. Having Vehumet's powers as an alternative for tough levels. Hope that bow willn't bring me to sure death; I'll use my very best in magic on multiPanLord floors and maybe on dragon and holy floors.

I thought there may be a better choice other than Vehumet which may increase the bowman damage-dealing or damage-shaving abilities keeping multiPanLord floors still manageable. Pity if there are no viable options.

[rchandra]

For bow users, The Shining One (holy weapon) and Okawaru (Finesse) are very good. I haven't tried this yet, but I'm tempted to have a character start with TSO and convert to Okawaru as soon as the weapon is made holy.

[Galefury]

Sure it's possible with a good bow, with any god you want. It might require some luck with deeper floors, and maybe another zig for preparation so you can train the right skills, but possible, sure, why not? Depending on luck with deep floors it might even be easy. Zigs are hugely variable, and as long as you are careful and have a way to save yourself from dying (and maybe skip floors) you're going to be fine.

Okawaru's Finesse might work with ranged weapons, I'm not sure. It is only a bit better than haste and doesn't stack with haste, so I don't know if it would be worth it. Maybe you can keep it up indefinitely, I haven't used it enough to remember whether it causes glow. Losing Veh's MP on kills sucks, though.

Chei will hugely improve your stats, which also helps with ranged. However, you want haste and swiftness so you can lure enemies away and kite, and haste also means 50% more damage output right there, so Chei is not a good idea.

Makhleb is nice in zigs because of free healing and no conducts. If you don't cast much, this is better than Veh's free MP.

TSO helps with many difficult levels, but also makes many difficult levels harder. If you have ways to avoid fighting many enemies at once (mapping + projected noise for example, since you are playing an old version), he can be very good. No necromancy sucks, though. Going with someone else is probably safer, but if you are lucky and have good tactics I'm sure playing with TSO will be quite fun.

[Owen]

Yep, I've made it with Vehumet. I mean, I've cleared Zig with a bow (+9, +9 longbow of speed) and +8 arrows.
I've entered Zig having 450 arrows and finished it with 200, but whew! Real fun!
I was cheating a bit - for example, the 27th floor was multiple Pan Lords' floor and I mostly firestormed them shooting just a couple of times.
Then I went to Pan and killed Cerebov, Mnoleg and Gloorx Vloq (or how does his name spell) using only bow. It took a couple dozens of arrows to shot down Cerebov.

character start with TSO and convert to Okawaru as soon as the weapon is made holy

Finesse is better than Cleansing Flame and other TSO's powers?

[rchandra]

character start with TSO and convert to Okawaru as soon as the weapon is made holy

Finesse is better than Cleansing Flame and other TSO's powers?

It probably isn't better, it just seems more bow-focused and perhaps more fun. You also avoid god wrath, and have arrow supplies which you may or may not need in 0.11 with the new mulching.