The Tavern

Never abandon Lugonu as DDAK because its wrath will send you to Abyss where you will be mutated and lose all those awesome mutations you got from mutation roulette you played.

Play Gr for your first win, because they can't be turned to stone which makes areas like lair a lot easier.

It's a bad idea to pick Ashenzari if you play naga, spriggan or vampire — you won't be able to take advantage of Sinv that Ash gives you. (bad advice and bad reasoning)

You should always start as a Wanderer, because you will have more consumables which are already identified.

Bad advice good reasoning

Dragon Form is a great spell. Your large size makes you immune to Spider Webs!

Throwing nets and ball python constriction too!

Save doing the rune floors of any branch until you have to. That way, there is a lot of experience available in a single spot for whenever you get drained.

An easy way to deal with Shoals is to ctrl-q as soon as you find it. It's not guaranteed, but there's a good chance that Shoals will be polymorphed into Swamp on your next playthrough!

This is a good advice with good reasoning.

Artificer is a strong background because you literally get access to all wand effects right from the start, although not in a predictable fashion.

Not all effects though (or was that intentionally part of your bad reasoning?).

Assassin is a strong background because it allows you to kill enemies in a stealthy manner early on.

No, just forgot that hw isn't included, maybe because my last Ar was a DD.

Join:
Ash, you will be able to decrease Armour skill to 0 when you get Statue Form for extended.
Beugh, you won't need flight for Swamp/Shoals.
Chei, you will have a reliable way to deal with Killer Bees
Dith, you will be unbelievably stealthy in Shadow DA while still having great AC
Ely, you will always have a chance to be protected from death
Fedhas, you will instakill some monsters by praying
Gozag, you will detect Orc 2 main vault via shop detection
Jiyva, because Dissolution will be friendly
Kiku, you will have guaranteed Necromutation for extended
Lugonu, you will get your weapon enchanted by 1-3 points with final ability
Makhleb, you will see Executioner without entering extended game
Nemelex, you will learn how to use Ctrl+f (or Ctrl+q)
Oka, you will be able to save XP by training Short Blades only to 3 for quickblade
Pak, you will get unlimited potions of magic for your VS
Qazlal, you will be able to cast Meph cloud on yourself
Ru, you will get on-demand MP restore for your casters
Sif Muna, you will get Necromutation AND Apportation for extended (better than Kiku!)
TSO, you will get your weapon enchantment increased by +2 with final gift
Trog, you will be able to use any book
Vehumet, you will be able to naturally have most of your starting spells hungerless in early Lair
Xom, you will stab a lot of monsters on D1 which is the hardest level in the game
Yred, you will have an easy way to deal with Cursed Skulls in Crypt
Zin, you will learn which monsters are intelligent and which are not, this is very important

Upon starting the game as an Abyssal Knight, if you happen to encounter a portal deeper into the Abyss, take it. This will bring you to a normal Abyssal level with unrestricted loot, and if danger threatens you can still simply gate out.

Yes, I used to do this, as well as wander the beginning pseudo-Abyss for the same reason, despite knowing that item generation doesn't work there as it does for the genuine article. I'm a stupid guy and I do very stupid things.

Gozag doesnt give you shop detection though.

Replacement then.
Join Gozag, you will have easy time in megazigs with potion petition.

Or:
Join Gozag, you won't have to butcher corpses anymore.

That's an advice for good reason!

You should worship Ash when playing Pokemon Go.

SpEn are generally well-advised to learn Invisibility if they find it, because Spriggans can't suffer the accuracy penalty for being invisible without having sInv.

Necromutation is a great spell. It's the only spell that can give bonus AC (+6!) while in heavy armour.

Wait what? Is that a thing?

According to learndb, as of 0.18 it isn't (it used to be though).

advice: you should always pay attention to changelogs, so you don't end up making outdated jokes in the 'give advice using the worst reasoning possible' thread

This advice might be outdated, but if you're badly mutated; you might want to face the silver stars in Holy Pan, because they have a chance of healing your mutations every time they use Silver Blast.

some real deep cuts coming out here

you should read-id your scrolls once you've gotten a few floors down, since that'll let you get to level 1 spellcasting and begin memorizing spells

remember to use your consumables when in a threatening situation! if you don't, elemental attacks will just end up breaking/burning them anyway

it's generally not worthwhile to carry around a pile of swap weapons; they weigh too many aum, and you won't be able to carry anything else!

you should play older versions of crawl, the devs remove so much interesting content

Put some points in Holy magic; cure poison can save your life!

Keep a low-level, easy-to-spam spell memorized, in order to victory dance at max efficiency.

Jiyva is a great god. The jellies will eat doors for you preventing Vault Wardens from having anything to lock.

when doing mnoleg's level make sure to keep the chaos spawns alive. that way if your int gets drained below 0 by the neqoxecs you can use a chaos spawn to banish yourself and scum abyss for xp until you regain your int

Ever been annoyed by a skeleton or corpse blocking a door you want to close? Should've picked Gozag.

Pretty often you should have picked Gozag though.

Conjure Flame is one of the best spells in the game, because you can stand in it to prevent dangerous monsters like Catoblepas and Swamp Drakes from affecting you with their clouds.

Don't worship Dithmengos. You won't be able to use scroll of immolation on those quokas!

drink hw so you can keep tabbing

You should worship Cheibriados because he makes you move slower, which causes more dudes to spawn while you're exploring floors so you get more experience points.

You should worship Ashenzari so you can curse all your equipment.

• You won't have to remember to tediously swap rings for resistances.
• Since you won't have to carry rods, alternate/ranged weapons, every type of ring, and so on, you could free up to 10 or more inventory slots for those wands you'll never use!
• *Fragile won't make an artifact worse anymore!

Those are all good reasons to go Ash though

For rings, you curse one slot and make swapping much easier

there's an inscription like {=R} or something that has the same effect.

you shouldn't go Chei because he makes your character powerful to the point where it's not even fun to play anymore

You should keep a rod of inaccuracy around because it will almost never miss against paralysed monsters.

THAT IS A GOOD REASON

It's a good reason if you replace "paralysed" with "sleeping" (and you have a decent amount of stealth). Its range is only 2 shorter than LOS and with decent evo it can kill most things in 1-2 hits (but good luck getting the second hit after the first woke your target).

You should fight ironbrand convokers with other enemies in sight so they waste turns casting Might Other instead of calling more enemies.