CiP, again with OpTm

[mopl]

Decided to have another try with this build
Here is the dump

  Code:

 Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup version 0.13-a0-3008-g2a6619c (tiles) character file.

Tentacool the Changer (Octopode Transmuter)         Turns: 4550, Time: 00:12:51

HP  38/38        AC  1     Str 10      XL: 6   Next: 60%
MP   9/9         EV 12     Int 17      God:
Gold 136         SH  0     Dex 12      Spells:  3 memorised,  3 levels left

Res.Fire  : . . .   See Invis. : .   y - quarterstaff (chaos)
Res.Cold  : . . .   Warding    : .   (no shield)
Life Prot.: . . .   Conserve   : .   (helmet restricted)
Res.Poison: .       Res.Corr.  : .   (no amulet)
Res.Elec. : .       Clarity    : .   m - opal ring {tried}
Sust.Abil.: . .     Spirit.Shd : .   (no ring)
Res.Mut.  : .       Stasis     : .   (no ring)
Res.Rott. : .       Flight     : .   (no ring)
Saprovore : . . .                    (no ring)
                                     (no ring)
                                     (no ring)
                                     (no ring)

@: slightly resistant to hostile enchantments, fairly stealthy
A: almost no armour, amphibious, 8 rings, constrict 8, camouflage 1, AC +1
a: no special abilities


You are on level 4 of the Dungeon.
You are hungry.

You have visited 1 branch of the dungeon, and seen 5 of its levels.

You have collected 116 gold pieces.

Inventory:

Hand weapons
 e - a runed dagger
 j - a club
 k - a club
 l - an orcish club
 s - a club
 t - a club
 u - an orcish club
 v - an orcish club
 w - a glowing hammer
 y - an uncursed quarterstaff of chaos (weapon)
Missiles
 b - 53 arrows
 i - 4 poisoned darts (quivered)
 x - 7 poisoned needles
 E - 4 curare-tipped needles
Comestibles
 a - 2 bread rations
 h - a meat ration
 z - 2 apples
 D - a rotting chunk of bat flesh
Jewellery
 m - an opal ring (left tentacle) {tried}
Books
 d - a book of Changes   
   
   Spells                             Type                      Level
   *Beastly Appendage                 Transmutation                1
   *Sticks to Snakes                  Transmutation                2
   *Spider Form                       Transmutation/Poison         3
   Ice Form                           Ice/Transmutation            4
   Blade Hands                        Transmutation                5


   Skills:
 - Level 1,0 Fighting
 * Level 1,8 Staves
 - Level 2,0 Dodging
 - Level 4,7 Unarmed Combat
 - Level 2,0 Spellcasting
 * Level 5,2 Transmutations


You have 3 spell levels left.
You know the following spells:

 Your Spells              Type           Power        Failure   Level  Hunger
a - Beastly Appendage     Trmt           ###...       2%          1    #......
b - Sticks to Snakes      Trmt           ###.......   3%          2    ###....
c - Spider Form           Trmt/Pois      ##........   21%         3    ####...


Dungeon Overview and Level Annotations

Branches:
Dungeon (5/27)           
Temple: D:4-7       

Altars:
Okawaru

Annotations:
D:4 burn here


Innate Abilities, Weirdness & Mutations

You cannot wear most types of armour.
You are amphibious.
You can wear up to eight rings at the same time.*
You can use your tentacles to constrict many enemies at once.*
Your skin changes colour to match your surroundings (Stlth).*
Your rubbery body absorbs attacks (AC +1).*


Message History

There is an open door here.
Found a robe.
You see here a robe.
You smell something rotten. (slot D)
There is an open door here.
HP restored.
You open the door.
There is an open door here.
Found a stone staircase leading down.
You open the door.
There is an open door here.
You are feeling hungry.
You see here a dagger.
Partly explored, can't reach some places.
Partly explored, can't reach some places.
Move the cursor to view the level map, or type ? for a list of commands.
Returning to the game...
New annotation for D:4 (include '!' for warning): burn here
Char dumped to 'C:/Users/oliv/AppData/Roaming/crawl/morgue/Tentacool.txt'.
Saving game... please wait.

#.#     #..........?.....
#.#######..........??P...
#........[.(.......??.?..
#...#########.......P??P.
#...#       #.......P????
#...#       #........??P.
#...#       #............
#...#########............
#........................
#.......??.??............
#.####????@????########..
#.#  #??PP.PP??#......#..
#.# #??PP...PP??......#..
#.###??P.....P??......#..
#.........(...........#.#
#.###??P.....P??......#.#
#.#  ??PP...PP??......#.#
#.#   ??PP.PP??#......'.#
#.#    ???.????#......#.#
#.######??.??..#......#.#


There are no monsters in sight!

Vanquished Creatures
  A phantom (D:4)
  A hound (D:4)
  Crazy Yiuf (D:2)
  An iguana (D:4)
  A worker ant (D:4)
  3 gnolls (D:2)
  2 adders
  4 worms
  An ooze (D:3)
  2 orcs
  3 ball pythons
  A bat skeleton (D:4)
  14 goblins
  10 hobgoblins
  3 jackals (D:3)
  7 kobolds
  4 training dummies (D:2)
  10 bats
  3 giant cockroaches
  6 giant geckos
  4 giant newts
  10 rats
92 creatures vanquished.

Vanquished Creatures (collateral kills)
  A gnoll (D:2)
1 creature vanquished.

Grand Total: 93 creatures vanquished

Notes
Turn   | Place    | Note
--------------------------------------------------------------
     0 | D:1      | Tentacool, the Octopode Transmuter, began the quest for the Orb.
     0 | D:1      | Reached XP level 1. HP: 13/13 MP: 1/1
   412 | D:1      | Reached XP level 2. HP: 18/18 MP: 0/3
   419 | D:1      | Learned a level 2 spell: Sticks to Snakes
   779 | D:2      | Reached XP level 3. HP: 21/23 MP: 1/4
  1508 | D:2      | Reached skill level 4 in Unarmed Combat
  1639 | D:2      | Found an iron altar of Okawaru.
  1862 | D:2      | Reached XP level 4. HP: 18/28 MP: 4/6
  1874 | D:2      | Upgraded the game from 0.12.1 to 0.13-a0-3008-g2a6619c
  2194 | D:2      | Noticed Crazy Yiuf
  2203 | D:2      | Killed Crazy Yiuf
  2203 | D:2      | Reached XP level 5. HP: 14/33 MP: 5/7
  2405 | D:2      | Learned a level 3 spell: Spider Form
  3484 | D:4      | Reached skill level 1 in Staves
  3484 | D:4      | Reached XP level 6. HP: 18/38 MP: 9/9
  3817 | D:4      | Noticed a phantom
  3839 | D:5      | Entered Level 5 of the Dungeon
  4125 | D:4      | Killed a phantom
  4125 | D:4      | Reached skill level 5 in Transmutations


Action                   |  1- 3 |  4- 6 || total
-------------------------+-------+-------++-------
Melee: Unarmed           |    80 |    69 ||   149
       Quarterstaff      |       |    64 ||    64
Throw: Dart              |       |     6 ||     6
 Cast: Beastly Appendage |     8 |     3 ||    11
       Sticks to Snakes  |     5 |     4 ||     9
       Spider Form       |       |     1 ||     1
 Stab: Sleeping          |     1 |     8 ||     9



I don't know if I should go for UC + blade hands, or use a weapon...
Is a Statue form octopode viable ?

[BlackSheep]

Do you have a weapon that might entice you to abandon the typical skill path for a transmuter?

[mopl]

what do you call the 'typical path' ?
But I do not have found anything valuable until now...

[BlackSheep]

Unarmed combat is used in most of the forms that transmuters will assume.

If the valuable thing you're referring to is that quarterstaff of chaos, you're better off turning it into a snake than basing your character around it.

[and into]

:oops:
what do you call the 'typical path' ?
But I do not have found anything valuable until now...

Well, Yiuf's quarterstaff of chaos is not so good that you'd want to consider completely changing paths. It is a finicky weapon that you don't want to rely upon, because it can do things like haste or cast invisibility on the enemy you hit with it...

If you are relatively new to the game, octopode can be quite hard to play because they are major late-bloomers: potentially very strong once you get enough rings, but until then quite vulnerable. [DOUBLE EDIT: Wow, misread your post count, obviously you aren't *that* new to the game. My bad! Still, if you aren't familiar with platying transmuters, I wouldn't recommend Op as a species to try them out.]

As for transmuter's "typical path," Elynae's guide is really good. You cannot trust everything (or even a lot of things) on the wiki, but this guide is good: http://crawl.chaosforge.org/Elynae%27s_ ... uter_guide
(The guide was not written by me, by the way, just to be clear. EDIT: It says Sludge Elf/Merfolk, but will in all essentials work for octopode.)

[mopl]

:oops:
what do you call the 'typical path' ?
But I do not have found anything valuable until now...

Well, Yiuf's quarterstaff of chaos is not so good that you'd want to consider completely changing paths. It is a finicky weapon that you don't want to rely upon, because it can do things like haste or cast invisibility on the enemy you hit with it...

If you are relatively new to the game, octopode can be quite hard to play because they are major late-bloomers: potentially very strong once you get enough rings, but until then quite vulnerable. [DOUBLE EDIT: Wow, misread your post count, obviously you aren't *that* new to the game. My bad! Still, if you aren't familiar with platying transmuters, I wouldn't recommend Op as a species to try them out.]

As for transmuter's "typical path," Elynae's guide is really good. You cannot trust everything (or even a lot of things) on the wiki, but this guide is good: http://crawl.chaosforge.org/Elynae%27s_ ... uter_guide
(The guide was not written by me, by the way, just to be clear. EDIT: It says Sludge Elf/Merfolk, but will in all essentials work for octopode.)

I indeed have some wins but still conside myself as a new player !
Op is a kind of self-challenge and I thought that Tm was a good start...
But my idea is mainly to build a decent character with Op than focused on Tm. However I'll try to follow this guide

[zugundertherug]

You really want to go for unarmed combat as an OpTm. A statue form Op is extremely powerful late game as you get to keep all of your rings' benefits as well as a ton of AC which is hard for an Op to come by, plus you get a very large bonus to damage (put all stats into str). Also make sure to push earth magic more than transmutations for extra AC from both statue form and stoneskin (both give a bigger bonus with higher earth magic). One final thing to mention is that Chei is actually a very good god (I would argue the best) for this character as you're able to make use of all the stat boosts, though other gods work too.

EDIT: After reading the guide obviously things work much differently with Chei as Spider Form loses most of its usefulness and blade hands isn't even necessary as you do just fine killing with tentacles (I push uc much more early on when going Chei). Haste is no longer an option, but silence becomes more tempting to force casters to melee you. The guide isn't bad but would recommend not choosing Oka as your god if you do follow it as you won't get much benefit from his gifts, Makhleb or TSO would be better imo.

[and into]

You really want to go for unarmed combat as an OpTm. A statue form Op is extremely powerful late game as you get to keep all of your rings' benefits as well as a ton of AC which is hard for an Op to come by, plus you get a very large bonus to damage (put all stats into str). Also make sure to push earth magic more than transmutations for extra AC from both statue form and stoneskin (both give a bigger bonus with higher earth magic). One final thing to mention is that Chei is actually a very good god (I would argue the best) for this character as you're able to make use of all the stat boosts, though other gods work too.

EDIT: After reading the guide obviously things work much differently with Chei as Spider Form loses most of its usefulness and blade hands isn't even necessary as you do just fine killing with tentacles (I push uc much more early on when going Chei). Haste is no longer an option, but silence becomes more tempting to force casters to melee you. The guide isn't bad but would recommend not choosing Oka as your god if you do follow it as you won't get much benefit from his gifts, Makhleb or TSO would be better imo.

Sorry, but this is pretty bad advice, in my opinion. Spider Form is extremely important for transmuters, double so for Op. Even for Op, Okawaru gives a huge benefit to unarmed (which is also why monks who go Okie are awesome). Heroism comes online very fast, is very cheap, and because base damage of unarmed is skill-based, you get a huge benefit from it (even more so than other melee dudes).

Generally going Okie for the gifts is somewhat dubious, as they are unreliable. However even in that, Okawaru is not so bad for UC octopode. UC Octopodes generally want a shield, so you can at least expect Okie (despite the overall rather poor quality of most of his gifts) to give you a good shield and a good cap at some point in the game, which is nice. You have less slots to fill, but conversely, you REALLY want something good in those two defensive slots. Unless you are extremely lucky, Okie only gives a few good pieces of armor (if that) over the course of a usual game, with any character. As an Op you are likely to get those two key slots filled with something nice, eventually. And if you decide to go ranged, you'll definitely get good ammo gifts and maybe a good launcher to boot.

Statue form is a perfectly good route to go, but there's no guarantee you'll find it by the time you'd want to cast it, and it takes a while to get a two-school, level 6 spell. You shouldn't sacrifice early game survivability (spider form) in the hope of getting a late game build going, even when that late game build is quite powerful and fun. Chei is quite bad as a starting god for transmuters because he no longer overlooks spider form, actually, though if you really like him then of course go with it, but if you want to maximize your chances at a win with Op I can't recommend that strategy. Makhleb is a fine choice, of course (as always).

TSO would be a strange choice for Op except maybe as a switch just before going into extended, because TSO ruins your stealth and that's especially important for Octopode (who get a bonus to stealth).

[zugundertherug]

Spider Form is extremely important for transmuters, double so for Op.

If you aren't going Chei, yes. If you are things change dramatically. You get such a large boost to offense from the stat boost (in trunk) that fighting in spider form is a bad idea since you sacrifice damage output, not to mention that contstriction becomes suprisingly potent early on (you can hit an orc warrior then let constriction finish it off). By going Chei you don't have to invest xp into transmutations for a long time as you simply smack everything to death, so you can tunnel xp that would be used getting spider form castable into more uc or dodging or shields if you find a lucky buckler. Alternatively you can train transmutations early even while going Chei to get blade hands up, in which case sticks to snakes is more than enough to deal with early threats (int boost=more+more powerful snakes). I've just found that spider form doesn't have a window where it's useful when going Chei.

As for Oka as a god choice heroism is pretty awesome for UC, forgot about that. Not as awesome as the Chei boost but still very good. Leads to an easier time early on than Chei as you can run if necessary (though Chei also gives a decent stealth boost so can avoid fights sometimes) or haste if you've found some early speed pots/wand.

You shouldn't sacrifice early game survivability (spider form) in the hope of getting a late game build going

This is a matter of philosophy but I'd prefer to burn through many characters early then have one make it far enough to turn into the unstoppable juggernaut rather than stressing out early on trying to survive. Like if I see Grinder and I've got might/agil/haste I'm going for it, gimme that xp.

[and into]

zugundertherug: First of all I'll say, I agree, sticks to snakes is extremely strong, it is a great spell with surprising lasting power due to how it works. And Elynae's guide doesn't emphasize that spell as much as it should, in my opinion. That would be my only substantial criticism of his guide, which is otherwise very good.

You shouldn't sacrifice early game survivability (spider form) in the hope of getting a late game build going

This is a matter of philosophy but I'd prefer to burn through many characters early then have one make it far enough to turn into the unstoppable juggernaut rather than stressing out early on trying to survive. Like if I see Grinder and I've got might/agil/haste I'm going for it, gimme that xp.

Yes, it is a difference of approach, and I can understand your logic completely. And I think Chei is great because he is unique, he has such a huge effect on your game when you worship him. When I give advice, though, I try to be careful not to give advice that is based around what I find to be enjoyable. I kind of take it as a given that if you are asking for advice about Crawl, you want people to offer up strategies (for your particular build, or particular parameters) that they consider the strongest. I assume people want me to tell them what I would do to win, not simply what I would do for fun. If I were to advise for the latter, I'd probably go more into what you (the player) are doing, rather than the character!

("For the early game, a cold beer is absolutely critical. Actually, beer is vitally important throughout. Some people like to go with a whiskey or mixed drink here, but in my experience the lower alcohol content of a beer is better to start, and the refreshment is welcome for the whole game. I'd go for the bourbon only after the character is established....")

Spider Form is extremely important for transmuters, double so for Op.

If you aren't going Chei, yes. If you are things change dramatically. You get such a large boost to offense from the stat boost (in trunk) that fighting in spider form is a bad idea since you sacrifice damage output... [quote]

Yes, but spider form does *plenty* of damage, until your other forms come on line. More damage is always better, of course, but going full swing on damage here is not the best play. Spider form is awesome offensively and defensively for a long time, and still situationally useful quite late in the game. (Though eventually the low AC becomes too much of a liability, even situationally.) By that point you'll have other transmutations online, including blade hands, which is ridiculously powerful even without the stat boost. Of course it is better with the stat boost—but even just with the amount of experience needed to get invocations on your Chei devotee up to where Step From Time is reliable—and you definitely need it reliable when you go chei, much more than the stat boosts chei's invocations are extremely powerful and, indeed, necessary—with that experience you could get heroism (like 1 level in invocations) and haste online (granted you need to find it—but it tends to be more common than statue form), and in the meantime spider form, and speed potions in a pinch, rock.


Of course, as you say, "spider form doesn't have a window of usefulness" if you are planning to go Chei. But this assumes Chei worship. I'd put it this way: Assuming you want to worship Chei, then using transmutations and UC is a great way to take advantage of the stat boosts he gives you. But it does not follow that, starting with transmutations and UC, worshiping Chei is the best route. It is a viable one, of course, but overall a more challenging path. The original post didn't say, "I really want to worship Chei, what works well for that?" It said, "I'm playing octopode transmuter, what should I do?"

[Rapigel]

I found that Yred is a solid choice for OpTm in a 3-rune game. The build is weak early, which is exactly when a zombie army is of greatest utility. Yred wears off when things start rolling, but by then you'll have all the forms and support spells you need to essentially play without god powers.

[mopl]

I'm not sure that Chei is a good choice for an Op : it's not an optimal god and Op are already kind of weak !
I would go for Chei with a Troll, who are more able to deal with early game when Chei boosts aren't online...

I've not choosen my God yet, Oka and Sif Muna may be my options, with two different ways of playing...