CiP : TrHu of Chei in GDA !

[mopl]

The current other topic here speaking about TrHu (and the debate about going or not for statue form, blade hands, etc) made me want to have another try at TrHu...

Here I am, at a second attempt after messing things up in Lair vs death yaks

This time, I found a gold dragon hide on D:1 (it was visible from the starting position )
My plan was to train Invocation up to ~10, then UC/Fighting/Dodging/Armour...

Later on I planned to have some spells online : Repel missile, Blink,...
But will I ever be able to cast them in GDA ?? (I already forgot about cBlink...)

Here is the dump :

  Code:

 Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup version 0.12.1 (tiles) character file.

Khogneur the Grappler (Troll Hunter)                Turns: 9159, Time: 00:37:42

HP  92/97        AC 18     Str 37      XL: 11   Next:  6%
MP  16/16        EV  4     Int 25      God: Cheibriados [******]
Gold 341         SH  0     Dex 25      Spells:  0 memorised, 10 levels left

Res.Fire  : + . .   See Invis. : .     - Unarmed
Res.Cold  : + . .   Warding    : .   e - +1 gold dragon armour
Life Prot.: . . .   Conserve   : .   (shield restricted)
Res.Poison: +       Res.Corr.  : .   D - +2 wizard hat
Res.Elec. : .       Clarity    : .   (no cloak)
Sust.Abil.: . .     Spirit.Shd : .   (gloves unavailable)
Res.Mut.  : .       Stasis     : .   (boots unavailable)
Res.Rott. : .       Ctrl.Telep.: .   (no amulet)
Gourmand  : +       Flight     : .   (no ring)
                                     A - +4 ring of evasion

@: mildly poisoned, very slow, somewhat resistant to hostile enchantments,
extremely unstealthy
A: unfitting armour, claws 3, fast metabolism 3, gourmand, regeneration 2,
saprovore 2, tough skin 2, AC +1
a: Bend Time, Temporal Distortion, Slouch, Step From Time, Renounce Religion


You are on level 10 of the Dungeon.
You worship Cheibriados.
Cheibriados is exalted by your worship.
You are completely stuffed.

You have visited 2 branches of the dungeon, and seen 11 of its levels.

You have collected 576 gold pieces.
You have spent 255 gold pieces at shops.

Inventory:

Hand weapons
 b - a -1 orcish blowgun
 i - a +0,+4 dagger of chaos
 G - an elven blowgun
Missiles
 c - 3 throwing nets
 E - 26 poisoned needles
 J - 5 javelins
 M - 2 silver javelins
 O - 2 large rocks (quivered)
Armour
 d - a +0 animal skin
 e - a +1 gold dragon armour (worn)
 g - a runed robe
 D - a +2 wizard hat (worn)
Magical devices
 o - a wand of polymorph {zapped: 3}
 p - a wand of magic darts {zapped: 13}
 H - a wand of frost {zapped: 1}
 K - a wand of polymorph
 L - a wand of lightning {zapped: 1}
 N - a short wooden wand
 P - a wand of draining {zapped: 1}
Comestibles
 a - 5 meat rations
 l - 7 bread rations
 m - a beef jerky
 t - 3 chunks of troll flesh
 u - 3 chunks of orc flesh
 z - 2 apples
 F - a choko
 S - an orange
Scrolls
 k - 10 scrolls of teleportation
 n - 4 scrolls of remove curse
 x - 2 scrolls labeled KLIKKO CEUCLA
 y - 3 scrolls of enchant weapon II
 B - 2 scrolls of amnesia
 C - 5 scrolls labeled PLOJUM JYMAFI
 I - a scroll of random uselessness
 T - a scroll of silence
Jewellery
 A - a +4 ring of evasion (left claw)
Potions
 f - 3 potions of restore abilities
 h - 2 orange potions
 j - a potion of magic
 q - 2 potions of slowing
 r - 2 slimy yellow potions
 s - 4 potions of curing
 v - a potion of confusion
 w - 2 murky green potions
Books
 Q - a book of Beasts   
   
   Spells                             Type                      Level
   Summon Butterflies                 Summoning                    1
   Sticks to Snakes                   Transmutation                2
   Call Canine Familiar               Summoning                    3
   Ice Form                           Ice/Transmutation            4
   Summon Ice Beast                   Ice/Summoning                4
   Summon Hydra                       Summoning                    7


   Skills:
 - Level 3,0 Fighting
 - Level 5,0 Throwing
 * Level 4,5 Dodging
 - Level 0,4 Stealth
 - Level 14,0 Unarmed Combat
 * Level 7,2 Invocations


You have 10 spell levels left.
You don't know any spells.

Dungeon Overview and Level Annotations

Branches:
Dungeon (10/27)            Temple (1/1) D:4             Orc (0/4) D:8
  Lair: D:8-13     

Altars:
Ashenzari
Cheibriados
Elyvilon
Fedhas
Kikubaaqudgha
Makhleb
Nemelex Xobeh
Okawaru
Sif Muna
Trog
Vehumet
Xom
Yredelemnul
Zin
the Shining One

Shops:
D:6: *  D:7: *


Innate Abilities, Weirdness & Mutations

You are too large for most types of armour.
You have claws for hands.
Your metabolism is lightning-fast.
You like to eat raw meat.
You heal very quickly.
You can eat rotten meat.
You are covered in fur (AC +1).
You have very tough skin (AC +2).


Message History

You mangle the hound!!
You kill the hound!
Cheibriados thoroughly appreciates the change of pace.
The hound zombie bites you but does no damage.
You hit the hound zombie.
You destroy the hound zombie!
Cheibriados thoroughly appreciates the change of pace.
Things that are here:
an orcish trident; an orcish plate armour; an orc corpse
O - 2 large rocks
Things that are here:
an orcish dagger of venom; an orcish leather armour; an orc corpse
You start butchering the orc corpse with your claws.
You continue butchering the corpse.
You feel sick.
You finish ripping the orc corpse into pieces.
u - 3 chunks of orc flesh
Things that are here:
an orc skeleton; an orcish dagger of venom; an orcish leather armour
Saving game... please wait.

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....##....####       .
.....##......#      ..#
.#...##......##    ....#
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####...#####.%).#....#
#  #..)..###........#
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There are no monsters in sight!


[ackack]

As a 0.12 Tr, yes, it will likely be quite difficult to get much going in GDA, as it's going to take a ton of Armour and spell skills to get things remotely reliable and you have Tr apts. In trunk with Chei it would actually be quite doable, since your huge Str would eat into the aevp of the GDA considerably.

[mopl]

Damn ! it's my second CiP that will wait for 0.13 to be continued ! I really must upgrade version !

[Sandman25]

Why are you training dodging?

[Amnesiac]

He probably had just put on the armour without choosing new skills to train before dumping.

[Tiktacy]

I don't know if this is a good option(I would like to get some feedback on this), but maybe you should be training maces instead of unarmed combat. I remember hearing that ER or EP(depending on version) reduces the amount of damage you deal with UC. Since GDA has the highest ER/EP in the game, going for a GSB might be the superior option(especially if you can get your hands on a vorpalize scroll).

[Sandman25]

I don't know if this is a good option(I would like to get some feedback on this), but maybe you should be training maces instead of unarmed combat. I remember hearing that ER or EP(depending on version) reduces the amount of damage you deal with UC. Since GDA has the highest ER/EP in the game, going for a GSB might be the superior option(especially if you can get your hands on a vorpalize scroll).

EP slows UA down, it's even worse than decreasing damage.

[Siegurt]

EP slows UA down, it's even worse than decreasing damage.

Actually given the same percentage reduction, slowing down is better than decreasing damage.

A reduction in speed is a direct reduction in the amount of damage per turn, so 20% speed means 20% less damage.
A 20% reduction in damage per hit results in results in more than a 20% reduction in total damage dependant on the effects of the AC of your target. (On a 0 AC target, it's exactly 20%, larger percentage reduction the more AC your target has)


However it is true that heavy armour does affect UC more than other weapons, it doesn't really change the point of the discussion.

[crate]

imo just claw things and notice they still die really fast and notice you don't take a lot of damage, and then forget about the speed penalty altogether

[Sandman25]

Actually given the same percentage reduction, slowing down is better than decreasing damage.

A reduction in speed is a direct reduction in the amount of damage per turn, so 20% speed means 20% less damage.
A 20% reduction in damage per hit results in results in more than a 20% reduction in total damage dependant on the effects of the AC of your target. (On a 0 AC target, it's exactly 20%, larger percentage reduction the more AC your target has)


However it is true that heavy armour does affect UC more than other weapons, it doesn't really change the point of the discussion.

Right, you are not taking into account overkills and misses, but it doesn't really change the point of the discussion.

[tasonir]

imo just claw things and notice they still die really fast and notice you don't take a lot of damage, and then forget about the speed penalty altogether

This is absolutely correct for the usual dragon armors (fire, ice, pearl), but not true for GDA. Without high armor skill, wearing GDA and attacking with unarmed can take over 2 turns on bad rolls (only about 5-10% of attacks, but still, randomly taking 2.5 on any attacks is probably a very bad thing). Having decent armor skill will improve this considerably, but probably not enough for extremely heavy things like GDA. Normal lighter armors in the -3 to -5 EP (.12 numbers) are fine.

Edit: see update below: it would be viable in the long term, but NOT early on. Only do this with high skills and higher strength.

[tasonir]

Decided to back this up with some numbers. Started a troll hunter, generated a GDA, recorded how long each attack took. (used .12, set strength to 27) Unarmed was 1.2, I probably should have set it to 0 for less variance, but hey. I managed to pull off a .9 speed attack, which has to be some sort of magical roll To be more rigorous I should do more than 10 attacks, but I'm at work, so tough

0 armor skill
2.0
1.3
1.0
1.3
1.1
1.0
1.7
1.4
2.4
1.4

Even with 0 armour, some of your attacks won't be slowed, but then some are 2.4 turns.

armor skill 15, unarmed ~1
1.1
0.9
1.5
1.1
1.0
1.1
1.2
1.3
1.0
1.7

Starting to get reasonable, with most things only slightly slowed, but still some bad rolls are worse than being literally slowed (1.7 vs 1.5).

Obviously having higher unarmed would subtract a fixed amount from all of these values, but you can get a sense of how much the armor penalty is and how variable it is. This was on a .12 character with 27 strength - Don't forget to set that! I did at first and was getting attack times over 3 turns

In the long run, with high armour, and especially in trunk with higher than required strength, it would be viable. But it's not something you should put on D:1. I'd say at least 15 armour skill, and keep in mind that even at 15, you'll still get penalties on the range of .7 fairly often. That means all monsters are likely to double attack you.

[crate]

really all that matters in the end is how much damage you take as you kill things

if gda is seriously hindering your offense to the point where you are taking lots of damage you will absolutely notice and hopefully you are not a moron so you will take it off

if you don't notice it then it's all good

in fact the way you are testing this is misleading; yes it hurts your offense. but that's not all gda does, it also happens to give a lot of ac. even if it hurts your offense noticeably it might still be a good idea to wear gda because you still end up taking less damage while you kill things.

Your attack delay number is basically meaningless on its own in all circumstances in crawl. The only thing that actually matters is your damage per aut vs enemy damage per aut (I guess to some extent also the stdev of these numbers). This is true if you are attacking at 2.0 turns/attack, and also true if you are attacking at 0.2 turns/attack. The only situation where this isn't exactly true is if you are attacking a melee-only monster that is also slower than you, in which case having smaller attack delay can change up your tactics a bit (for instance if you take 2.0 turns against a cyclops which is out of rocks, the cyclops will get an attack in against you in that time; by counting turns and using a faster weapon you can ensure it doesn't get a chance to melee you). Even in this situation it's not actually important though, since you can always just back out of the fight at any time. A lot of people are scared of high attack delay for no real reason and I do not really understand why.

This is absolutely correct for the usual dragon armors (fire, ice, pearl)

lol

[tasonir]

I'm well aware pearl isn't common, I just threw it in since it has the same penalty as the usual fire armor. I don't find myself using ice very often either, but it's still reasonably common