Embarassing things you used to do in Crawl

[Lafaros]

Anyone have some really good stories of some things you did when you first played Crawl, or did even awhile ago, but have since learned was actually a terrible idea?

For me, I used to read the wiki very diligently. So as you might imagine, I've got quite a few:

- On my very first win (a MfSk), I was with Okawaru for most of the game but never used either of his active abilities once. I basically took him for the gifts. I also, later, switched to the Shining One at the end because I was convinced that Divine Warriors would give me a better chance at beating the orbs of fire (which had killed me twice before on other characters).

- On that same run, I found myself very low on cMut and without rMut, so I had the bright idea to try looking around the abyss for one of the two. Well, surprise surprise, that didn't go too well. I ended up heavily mutated even going into Zot. By the time he ascended he had -30% HP/MP, Berserkitis 2, Blurry Vision 3, and other fun things. I don't even know how this character got to Zot. It makes me want to go back in time and choke myself, but by some freak occurrence he won so I guess it's alright.

- Before I had won, I had a period where I was obsessed with DsFi of Kiku. I would pick the Necronomicon every time. Because psh, who needs an excellent weapon that can carry you through the game when you can have a book of spells you probably won't even live long enough to cast? Twisted Resurrection and Demonic Guardian got one of these abominations a rune. Then Mennas set things right.

- On my first 15-rune win with a melee character (another MfSk of the Shining One), I think I did a lot of things well. I killed all the Hell Lords and unique Pandemonium Lords, and had a good time doing it. This does not excuse gathering up holy weapons the entire time and using low-power Tukima's dance to finish off greater mummies in the Tomb. Somewhere on the greater mummy gauntlet my swarm of weapons got lost by a teleport trap, so I started just doing melee. Then I promptly realized I was an idiot.

[Pereza0]

Back when I had trouble getting to the vaults, and before I had managed to get any rune, I thought getting mutations was cool for some reason.

I got as deep as I could and then I ate every sky beast/ugly thing chunk I found. I was upset when they didn't drop any. Obviously I stopped doing it eventually, but I did get a pretty nice set of muts some times

[HenryFlower]

With a run that's going well, I used to try to fight a unique or player ghost, and, when things weren't going particularly well, keep going thinking "one more hit will do it" rather than running away.



Oh, wait, I still do that...

[prozacelf]

LOL....I just keep going back to fight them again Henry......

Sad thing is, I know to run away from the unique, but I run into something else that kills me during the trip half the time.

[BlackSheep]

I used to choose Nemelex on every single spriggan I played because evocations!

[prozacelf]

I used to choose Nemelex on every single spriggan I played because evocations!

I used to choose Artificer every time I used a Spriggan for the same reason....

[Sojiro]

I kept movement keys pressed, instead of using Shift. That got me killed so many times...
I trained melee skills way past min delay.
I victory danced Evocation with a Disc of Storm and drowned myself...

I used to choose Nemelex on every single spriggan I played because evocations!

That can be boring, sure, but this is hardly a terrible idea.

[Jabberwocky]

I used to stash.

[Grimm]

I victory danced Evocation with a Disc of Storm and drowned myself...

That is pretty cool.

[BlackSheep]

I used to choose Nemelex on every single spriggan I played because evocations!

That can be boring, sure, but this is hardly a terrible idea.

Not terrible, embarassing.

[Sar]

Reading the wiki a lot.
Thinking "not using shields on a melee character is pretty much gimping yourself" - the damage difference didn't seem big from numbers (I never actually tried two-handers), and seeing all those "you block OoD/IS/LCS" messages certainly didn't help either.
Thinking that you need Necromutation to survive the postend (torments and lack of permafood). My second winning character was a CeTm because wiki said Ce are OP (to be fair, they are very good at least) and because Necromut is half Transmutations. After learning Necromut I stayed in it for the rest of the game. Got 15 runes and a Zig clear (with Tornado).
Abyss scumming for items and XP. Panscumming for XP. Clearing all Pan floors. Clearing all Hell floors on my first char to go to Hells (Tar and Coc).
My first win was a TrFi of Okawaru. I found a PDA very early, but later switched to GDA because of superior resists and AC.
Thinking that you need to have all those resists maxed (this is partially due to not understanding how resists work and not understanding that AC helps reducing almost all damage, including elemental one ).
"Bleh, a +5 AC ring. I wish it was something useful like fire resist."

I'm sure there's more.

[TwilightPhoenix]

On my second win, which was a SpEn, I ignored a +8,+8 electric quick blade for a lowly enchanted flame sabre because the quick blade's base damage was too low. I still smack myself every time I think about it.

[mrbobbyg]

I would dive deeper and deeper into the dungeon/Orc because I didn't have the rPois I "needed" to do lair.

[aegis]

You call that embarrasing?
After i actually began playing crawl, my best character got more than 5000 points.

[Annonith]

I trained melee skills way past min delay.

I still do that because I can never remember how that stupid formula goes, and I'm too lazy to write it down or check the internet.
Well and there is that small fact that description of weapon skill say that training this skill also increase damage dealt by weapon.
To this day I don't know if this is actually true.

[tasonir]

My first 15 rune win was a melee character who trained up to necromutation just to avoid torment. I thought that form would be best for unarmed, because you know, blade hands and statue form are just too much damage and too easy to cast.

[tasonir]

I trained melee skills way past min delay.

I still do that because I can never remember how that stupid formula goes, and I'm too lazy to write it down or check the internet.
Well and there is that small fact that description of weapon skill say that training this skill also increase damage dealt by weapon.
To this day I don't know if this is actually true.

Weapon skills do increase damage past min delay, it's just that when it's increasing damage and speed you get a much, much larger effect. Once it's damage only, it's only about 20% as effective as damage and time (rough ballpark, depends heavily on what skill level you're at/weapon you're using). You still get -something- though. Worth doing later on after you've trained up defenses and magic and have extra exp.

[Sandman25]

I used to wait for Spider form to timeout before proceeding to explore Lair. I learned 5 minutes ago that it can actually be ended manually. Especially embarrassing because I manually ended Necromutation multiple times before

[WildSam]

On my first win i spent ~5000 turns with Necromut/LRD/Dig making ascension route close to optimal (shortest) as much as i could.
And excluded non-optimal upstairs. And tested every stair. And tested whole route then by performing orb-run without orb.
Then almost died at Zot:5 after picking it.
Then ascended without any trouble.
Folks in chat said i dont need to do all this stuff for winning, but i was too afraid of Cerebov appearing with Lom Lobon and oneshot'n me.

[Marbit]

When I started playing I always used Trolls.
My characters always died in the first levels of the dungeon because I had no idea that I could butcher corpses (I think that, at that time, there was no tutorial and the food clock was more strict or there was less permafood).

[Grimm]

When I started playing I always played MDFi because that's what that flowchart said. The heavy armour nerf had just happened so I died. A lot.

[Sar]

Good thing no one will ever be deceived by this flowchart now!

[Grimm]

I think that's the main reason they removed MD.

[Confidence Interval]

New monster proposal: flowchart.

[Psieye]

My first 15 rune win was a melee character who trained up to necromutation just to avoid torment. I thought that form would be best for unarmed, because you know, blade hands and statue form are just too much damage and too easy to cast.

Yep that sounds familiar, though in my case I did it on a melee guy with a big 2h weapon and heavy armour. I had to grind the Abyss to get the EXP for that, because I was deathly afraid of stepping into Pan or Hell. Then I promptly quit that character once I got Necromutation because I got so bored.

[kenmtraveller]

I played the game for months before realizing that you could automove.

[snow]

Very early on I didn't realize corpses disappeared and I had the idea to collect the bodies of all the uniques I killed. Looking back it was a bit of a creepy idea.

[HenryFlower]

I would never, ever, ever, ever train anything with negative aptitude. I hated to train anything with 0 aptitude.