Lair Larrikin
Posts: 20
Joined: Friday, 8th March 2013, 15:30
Tuesday, 12th March 2013, 16:15
Deep Elf Wizard Guide
Deep elves rule, are cool, and overpowered, despite threads tending to be locked for saying so 
. High level conjuration spells bring the smackdown like no other attack type in the game, culminating in the king of pwn, firestorm (or the queen, icestorm). No one gets it earlier or can use it more effectively than a deep elf. This guide should get new players from dying miserably to winning with style and suitable carnage, turning the entire dungeon into a charred ruin. Laugh as 'powerful' and 'dangerous' uniques fail to get the text of their shout completed before they vaporize, yawn as you wipe out ziggurats and resort to giving yourself house-rule handicaps to provide a challenge, pose heroically as you smash the dungeon like a.. giant smashing thing (but with magic). You get the idea.
*disclaimer*
This is how I play casters and it's very effective. I don't claim to know everything or even a lot about the game or be the first one to play like this, just thought a guide would be fun. Constructive criticism is welcome, flaming isn't. It is targetted at new players or those who don't play conjurers much. In preemptive response to 'This is nothing new...blah blah' I submit that it wouldn't be much of a guide if I stuck only to what no player anywhere knew (nothing), would it?
*disclaimer ends*
The guide will be done in parts over the next while. I'll start a new character to play through and add in some minor aar stuff. I'll edit it to add content or correct.
DEEP ELF WIZARD - A REAL MAN'S CASTER
General Principles
(to always keep in mind and which will keep you alive, unless you forget, in which case you will die quicker than an indigenous people in the Americas)
- You're a wizard, that means you don't get involved in fistfights or primitive melees with pointy things. That is for peasants with no class. If you ignore this you deserve to die, which you likely will.
- You've heard of speed is life, well for you mana points are life. Don't leave yourself short without a way to recover, ever. You will have spells which can allow you to escape from any situation, provided you have mana. That means early to mid game always keeping a reserve supply for a few blinks or whatever. Later you will get nifty ways to recover like sublimation of blood and pots, in a pinch, but always think of them as something you'd rather not use.
- The best defence is a good offence, and an even better defence is having the best offence in the game by miles. You are not going to aim to be capable of absorbing more punishment, you are going to annihilate everything before they can get within five tiles of you. This is why I think fire magic is clearly superior to ice magic for our character. Ice has some nice defensive spells but we don't plan to get damage to reduce. Firestorm is smite targeted which is a large advantage over icestorm.
- If in doubt, kill it later. Crawl is strange in that there is hardly a penalty whatsover for skipping difficult encounters. The difficulty in realizing this accounts for 90% of noob fatalities, I'd wager. Experienced players just yawn and skip to the next floor. Noobs spend all their consumables trying to kill whatever nasty it is or die. Uniques drop crap usually, don't bother. Quite early in the game though you won't have this problem with this character, since everything will be fair game for a quick dispatching.
- I will add more when I think of them so if you die and say 'Well I was following all the advice of that noob windbag on the forums to the letter' then you just got unlucky that I hadn't finished all of them.
General question that might come up - 'Why not fire elementalist?' Answer - 'Because Wiz gets max INT, which is just cool, and the Wiz spellbook can keep you alive better at the start than the elementalist one, albeit requiring a little more imagination'
BOOK OF MINOR MAGIC - SPELL ANALYSIS
This book is actually pretty great. While it may not look it at first, it has all the tools to keep you alive until you get your first decent conjuration spell, the lack of which is its only significant weakness. With the exception of slow, I make constant use of all these spells, and you can use slow if you want.
MAGIC DART - 1mp
Low damage, always hits, long range. Not bad. Will keep you going for the first few dungeon levels. Can plink almost anything to death eventually. Rather tedious. We will use another method.
BLINK - 2mp
Possibly the best spell in the game, 'pound for pound'. Useful without teleport control, overpowered with it. When you find a ring of control teleport wear it, blink becomes an almost foolproof escape spell since you can then control the general direction of your teleport.
SUMMON IMP - 2mp
This is very handy for dealing with tougher monsters in the beginning or things that are immune to poison or fire, which we will be using a lot of. Just spam away and then stay out of the way until they have finished whatever it is off.
REPEL MISSILES - 2mp
This works quite often against centaur arrows etc., which are lethal to your low HP wizard at the start. Don't be shy to hit it whenever you see something ranged eh, at range.
MEPHETIC CLOUD - 3mp
An awesomely cheesy early game spell. The description is kind of lame, but this confuses monsters based on their hit dice. The confusion is a killer, and very few monsters in the early game are immune to poison (immunity to poison grants immunity to the confuse), and even fewer resist the confusion effect. Confuse a bunch and then plink with magic dart or summon imp. You will be relying on this spell A LOT. (Makes quite a lot of noise, use with a clear path behind you). Devastatingly effective, especially when combined with..
CONJURE FLAME - 3mp
Ah, conjure flame, corridors, confused monsters, suicidal undead, brave (read stupid) uniques who will stand in fire to get a chance to hit you, it warms the heart (and your enemies). Orge in corridor coming for you. Flame in front, he stops. Flame behind, no escape. Mephetic cloud. Watch and laugh as he stumbles into the fire and dies painfully. Big crowd of fat yaks (they're COMIN RIGHT FOR US!!) Meph them. They all attack each other. Plant a few clouds of flame here and there. Go buy some buns, cheese, etc. and come back in half an hour. Buff melee-type unique coming for you with more muscles than brains. Get in corridor. Plant flame right next to you so he has to walk through it. When he walks into it stay put. He will die in a couple of turns, you won't if you're mildly careful. Works fine and easier on undead. Conjure flame deals large damage per turn in the early game.
EARLY GAME
Once at level three you should have all the spells from the book of minor magic memorized bar 'slow'. This time before you get your first decent conjuration spell is the only period in the game you won't be able to simply overpower the opposition, so a little finesse is required. The goal is to get to the temple, worship Vehument, and hopefully get lucky and find some kind of conjuration better than 'magic dart'. Before flames, this almost always happens, and if not it's straightforward, if a little tedious, to wait until vehumet's gifts.
Monsters who will ruin your day faster than a posse of sad old-hand posters on a roguelike forum
ORGE - Will one-shot you and then beat its chest with that rafter it calls a 'club' if you let it in range. Preferably use the conjure flame, mephetic cloud combo but as always leave yourself an escape behind you because meph is loud and may attract more nasties. In this category are other heavy melee hitters like iguanas.
CENTAUR - Worse than the melee crowd, its arrows are lethal to your mage with sucky HP. Don't get in a situation where it has favorable ground. Example - it's at the end of a corridor awake and you have to close to meph range. You won't make it. Just back up and approach from a different direction so that it comes into your line of sight within range of meph. Polymorph other is good for laughs on these if you're feeling adventurous. Also in this category are ELECTRIC EELS who will make you feel like Ted Bundy - no, after they caught him. Avoid them or proceed wery wery carefully.
ORC PRIEST - Will smite you like a coward from a safe range. So cheap, too afraid to close and melee like a man. Oh, wait.. Meph/Conjure combo cautiously. Usually comes with friends who you can confuse and watch kill each other.
VEHUMET
So you've reached the temple and are wondering what god to choose. The title of this section is a clue. He is the Jordan to your Pippen, the Messi to your Xavi, the Otis Toole to your Henry Lee Lucas. Vehumet is just so good. Sure, you could go with a wimpy 'safe' god like sif muna and channel mana like a girl - bah. You want to be an agent of destruction and hellfire, not a library card holder and book club member.
MP for Kills - You need MP more than anyone else, you kill more and faster than anyone else, MP for kills is good, no? This really shines in the late game.
Miscast Reduction ('aiding') - This effectively allows you to cast your big spells even earlier, and you already get them earlier in the game. I'm in lair now with orb of destruction at 1%.
Range Extension - Awesome, fry things further away.
Cost Reduction - See 'MP for Kills'
Not fearing a nerf for being too good, Vehument will also give you all the conjuration and summoning spellbooks you'll need.
*sadly flamed into oblivion before completion, apologies*
. High level conjuration spells bring the smackdown like no other attack type in the game, culminating in the king of pwn, firestorm (or the queen, icestorm). No one gets it earlier or can use it more effectively than a deep elf. This guide should get new players from dying miserably to winning with style and suitable carnage, turning the entire dungeon into a charred ruin. Laugh as 'powerful' and 'dangerous' uniques fail to get the text of their shout completed before they vaporize, yawn as you wipe out ziggurats and resort to giving yourself house-rule handicaps to provide a challenge, pose heroically as you smash the dungeon like a.. giant smashing thing (but with magic). You get the idea.*disclaimer*
This is how I play casters and it's very effective. I don't claim to know everything or even a lot about the game or be the first one to play like this, just thought a guide would be fun. Constructive criticism is welcome, flaming isn't. It is targetted at new players or those who don't play conjurers much. In preemptive response to 'This is nothing new...blah blah' I submit that it wouldn't be much of a guide if I stuck only to what no player anywhere knew (nothing), would it?
*disclaimer ends*
The guide will be done in parts over the next while. I'll start a new character to play through and add in some minor aar stuff. I'll edit it to add content or correct.
DEEP ELF WIZARD - A REAL MAN'S CASTER
General Principles
(to always keep in mind and which will keep you alive, unless you forget, in which case you will die quicker than an indigenous people in the Americas)
- You're a wizard, that means you don't get involved in fistfights or primitive melees with pointy things. That is for peasants with no class. If you ignore this you deserve to die, which you likely will.
- You've heard of speed is life, well for you mana points are life. Don't leave yourself short without a way to recover, ever. You will have spells which can allow you to escape from any situation, provided you have mana. That means early to mid game always keeping a reserve supply for a few blinks or whatever. Later you will get nifty ways to recover like sublimation of blood and pots, in a pinch, but always think of them as something you'd rather not use.
- The best defence is a good offence, and an even better defence is having the best offence in the game by miles. You are not going to aim to be capable of absorbing more punishment, you are going to annihilate everything before they can get within five tiles of you. This is why I think fire magic is clearly superior to ice magic for our character. Ice has some nice defensive spells but we don't plan to get damage to reduce. Firestorm is smite targeted which is a large advantage over icestorm.
- If in doubt, kill it later. Crawl is strange in that there is hardly a penalty whatsover for skipping difficult encounters. The difficulty in realizing this accounts for 90% of noob fatalities, I'd wager. Experienced players just yawn and skip to the next floor. Noobs spend all their consumables trying to kill whatever nasty it is or die. Uniques drop crap usually, don't bother. Quite early in the game though you won't have this problem with this character, since everything will be fair game for a quick dispatching.
- I will add more when I think of them so if you die and say 'Well I was following all the advice of that noob windbag on the forums to the letter' then you just got unlucky that I hadn't finished all of them.
General question that might come up - 'Why not fire elementalist?' Answer - 'Because Wiz gets max INT, which is just cool, and the Wiz spellbook can keep you alive better at the start than the elementalist one, albeit requiring a little more imagination'
BOOK OF MINOR MAGIC - SPELL ANALYSIS
This book is actually pretty great. While it may not look it at first, it has all the tools to keep you alive until you get your first decent conjuration spell, the lack of which is its only significant weakness. With the exception of slow, I make constant use of all these spells, and you can use slow if you want.
MAGIC DART - 1mp
Low damage, always hits, long range. Not bad. Will keep you going for the first few dungeon levels. Can plink almost anything to death eventually. Rather tedious. We will use another method.
BLINK - 2mp
Possibly the best spell in the game, 'pound for pound'. Useful without teleport control, overpowered with it. When you find a ring of control teleport wear it, blink becomes an almost foolproof escape spell since you can then control the general direction of your teleport.
SUMMON IMP - 2mp
This is very handy for dealing with tougher monsters in the beginning or things that are immune to poison or fire, which we will be using a lot of. Just spam away and then stay out of the way until they have finished whatever it is off.
REPEL MISSILES - 2mp
This works quite often against centaur arrows etc., which are lethal to your low HP wizard at the start. Don't be shy to hit it whenever you see something ranged eh, at range.
MEPHETIC CLOUD - 3mp
An awesomely cheesy early game spell. The description is kind of lame, but this confuses monsters based on their hit dice. The confusion is a killer, and very few monsters in the early game are immune to poison (immunity to poison grants immunity to the confuse), and even fewer resist the confusion effect. Confuse a bunch and then plink with magic dart or summon imp. You will be relying on this spell A LOT. (Makes quite a lot of noise, use with a clear path behind you). Devastatingly effective, especially when combined with..
CONJURE FLAME - 3mp
Ah, conjure flame, corridors, confused monsters, suicidal undead, brave (read stupid) uniques who will stand in fire to get a chance to hit you, it warms the heart (and your enemies). Orge in corridor coming for you. Flame in front, he stops. Flame behind, no escape. Mephetic cloud. Watch and laugh as he stumbles into the fire and dies painfully. Big crowd of fat yaks (they're COMIN RIGHT FOR US!!) Meph them. They all attack each other. Plant a few clouds of flame here and there. Go buy some buns, cheese, etc. and come back in half an hour. Buff melee-type unique coming for you with more muscles than brains. Get in corridor. Plant flame right next to you so he has to walk through it. When he walks into it stay put. He will die in a couple of turns, you won't if you're mildly careful. Works fine and easier on undead. Conjure flame deals large damage per turn in the early game.
EARLY GAME
Once at level three you should have all the spells from the book of minor magic memorized bar 'slow'. This time before you get your first decent conjuration spell is the only period in the game you won't be able to simply overpower the opposition, so a little finesse is required. The goal is to get to the temple, worship Vehument, and hopefully get lucky and find some kind of conjuration better than 'magic dart'. Before flames, this almost always happens, and if not it's straightforward, if a little tedious, to wait until vehumet's gifts.
Monsters who will ruin your day faster than a posse of sad old-hand posters on a roguelike forum
ORGE - Will one-shot you and then beat its chest with that rafter it calls a 'club' if you let it in range. Preferably use the conjure flame, mephetic cloud combo but as always leave yourself an escape behind you because meph is loud and may attract more nasties. In this category are other heavy melee hitters like iguanas.
CENTAUR - Worse than the melee crowd, its arrows are lethal to your mage with sucky HP. Don't get in a situation where it has favorable ground. Example - it's at the end of a corridor awake and you have to close to meph range. You won't make it. Just back up and approach from a different direction so that it comes into your line of sight within range of meph. Polymorph other is good for laughs on these if you're feeling adventurous. Also in this category are ELECTRIC EELS who will make you feel like Ted Bundy - no, after they caught him. Avoid them or proceed wery wery carefully.
ORC PRIEST - Will smite you like a coward from a safe range. So cheap, too afraid to close and melee like a man. Oh, wait.. Meph/Conjure combo cautiously. Usually comes with friends who you can confuse and watch kill each other.
VEHUMET
So you've reached the temple and are wondering what god to choose. The title of this section is a clue. He is the Jordan to your Pippen, the Messi to your Xavi, the Otis Toole to your Henry Lee Lucas. Vehumet is just so good. Sure, you could go with a wimpy 'safe' god like sif muna and channel mana like a girl - bah. You want to be an agent of destruction and hellfire, not a library card holder and book club member.
MP for Kills - You need MP more than anyone else, you kill more and faster than anyone else, MP for kills is good, no? This really shines in the late game.
Miscast Reduction ('aiding') - This effectively allows you to cast your big spells even earlier, and you already get them earlier in the game. I'm in lair now with orb of destruction at 1%.
Range Extension - Awesome, fry things further away.
Cost Reduction - See 'MP for Kills'
Not fearing a nerf for being too good, Vehument will also give you all the conjuration and summoning spellbooks you'll need.
*sadly flamed into oblivion before completion, apologies*
Last edited by Camcolit on Wednesday, 13th March 2013, 12:41, edited 3 times in total.
- For this message the author Camcolit has received thanks:
- MyOtheHedgeFox
