The Tavern

Please use this thread for discussion of all things pertaining to Week 2 of Crawl Sudden Death Challenges Season 2.

Week 2: FoAE (Formicid Air Elementalist)

Tier I Bonus: Reach the end of any branch (including D) before entering Lair.
Tier II Bonus: Collect the silver rune before entering Depths.

*Note: For the purpose of bonuses, "branch" means "multi-level branch, not including the main Dungeon".
Unless otherwise specified, you do not need to win the game to get points for the bonus challenges.

CSDC Season 2 Results and Standings

Week 2 Challenge Wins

Spoiler: show

Do you need to complete the tier 1 bonus to be eligible for tier 2? I assume the answer is: Yes.

Actually the answer is "no". The bonuses are independent of each other, but on most weeks they will be closely related.

Y'all know I ain't that good at this, but my kneejerk opinion is that this is a shitty combo.

Is this a shitty combo?

It could be worse, but it's not crazy awesome or anything.

Died twice in a row on D:1 -- one to the first enemy I saw. Not saying it's entirely the combo's fault, but...ugh.

XuaXua wrote:Y'all know I ain't that good at this, but my kneejerk opinion is that this is a shitty combo.

Is this a shitty combo?

It's the second worst race in the game with one of the worse Mage starts (that said race is bad at)

Yeah it's really bad

Dead to Snorg, Metabolic Englaciation didn't last through his berserk and I didn't have a plan B besides "bizap low-power lightning bolts". At least I made it to Orc 4 first, but I really should have just gone to Lair after that instead of engaging Snorg.

I skipped Ash on D:2 hoping for Fedhas or Veh to get a quicker power boost - neither of those were in the temple, so I eventually just went back for Ash anyway since a quick boost seemed less important after I already made it to D:6, and the book of Ice looked quite useful with her.

Found D1 altar of chei...should I do it?

Chei is the popular winning god for Fo... what could possibly go wrong? If you decide to die, just make sure you do it before XL 5.

Heh, I took up chei but my run ended minutes later.

Code:: You are on level 1 of the Dungeon. As you read the scroll of identify, it crumbles to dust. g - a potion of beneficial mutation Drink which item? (? for menu, Esc to quit) Really quaff g - a potion of beneficial mutation {!q}? You feel less in control of your magic. Your Spells Type Power Failure Level Hunger r - Repel Missiles Chrm/Air #..... 38% 2 ###.... z - Shock Conj/Air ##.. 22% 1 #...... S - Swiftness Chrm/Air #....... 38% 2 ###....

So, this takes practice.

I died pretty quickly with my first one and qualified for the second try.
Instead of playing immediately, I practiced with a FoIE and ignored spellcasting.
I learned the basic things I needed to do and tactics to survive.

My second-try FoAE of Elyvilon just established his L:2 stash. Finding an early Book of Earth and a Lajatang (seconds after joining Ely...) and an rPois Leather Armour helped.

Of course, I f'd up the Tier 1 bonus. Whoops.

Done

Finding a rod of inacc early on feels almost like cheating, and i managed to hoard a ton of HW thanks to weightless. Not really a great combo but being guaranteed RMsl + Swift is nice enough.

GL to everyone else

I am apparently bad at this. Second week = 0 points.

I really need to start paying attention to turncount

duvessa wrote:I really need to start paying attention to turncount

Code:: Skills: - Level 2.4 Air Magic - Level 25.0 Earth Magic

Is air magic that bad?

doubtofbuddha wrote:I am apparently bad at this. Second week = 0 points.

This is normal. Complain only if you have 0 points after 6 weeks

Died to a manticore on D:9

I have no idea how I'm doing this.

WalkerBoh wrote:I have no idea how I'm doing this.

You got an early elec weapon right?

Yeah I got an elec long sword from Blork on D:4 (and had a wand of paralysis so dealing with him was easy), so that definitely helped.

Well, that was ugly ... tried switch right off to melee mode and failed miserably twice over (once on D1!). So of course, the only altars found in the second, slightly better game were Sif, Veh, and Kik (maybe the game telling me something about my choices? though I could have taken the latter, I suppose). Anyway, on to next week for me, and good luck to everyone else this week.

Strat wrote:Well, that was ugly ... tried switch right off to melee mode and failed miserably twice over (once on D1!). So of course, the only altars found in the second, slightly better game were Sif, Veh, and Kik (maybe the game telling me something about my choices? though I could have taken the latter, I suppose). Anyway, on to next week for me, and good luck to everyone else this week.

I didn't watch your game so maybe you know this already, but when you switch to melee on a race that doesn't have good UC you have to rely on your starting spell for at least the first few D levels. It's nearly impossible just to start from turn 1 with melee on FoAE.

WalkerBoh -- I did sort of know that, but it's good to get confirmation from the master of switching to melee from book starts. I suspect that I didn't wait long enough to put on some armour, though, which tanked by success rate. Do you ever train the magic skill (AE or Conj in this case) a little to start, or do you just muddle through with the starting level? At any rate, my death(s) were my fault, I'm sure, though RNG didn't throw me any bones at all (wands, for instance, or very useful potions).

I don't usually bother training up a spell school or conj, no. I do wait to put on armour until I can kill things in melee though.

If you are interested, here is the beginning of my FoAE game, thru part of D:3 : !lm walkerboh wk2 began -tv:>16:channel=walker
Type that into ##crawl, and then you can watch it at: http://termcast.develz.org (the channel is walker)

I'm sure other good players have different styles and tactics, but this is the sort of thing I regularly do and it works for me.

Died to double-move hydra after failing a 6% miscast rate on swiftness, then a scroll of fear failure. I swear these nonsense deaths only happen during CSDC.

Cheibrodos wrote:Died to double-move hydra after failing a 6% miscast rate on swiftness, then a scroll of fear failure. I swear these nonsense deaths only happen during CSDC.

In the grand scheme of 'unlikely things that could happen in Crawl', that's not that unlikely

Patashu wrote:
Cheibrodos wrote:Died to double-move hydra after failing a 6% miscast rate on swiftness, then a scroll of fear failure. I swear these nonsense deaths only happen during CSDC.

In the grand scheme of 'unlikely things that could happen in Crawl', that's not that unlikely

I'm sure I'd feel worse if I got hit for 68 damage from a basic merfolk after turn 1 Aizul sleep, but that knowledge doesn't revive my shitty bugdude.

Cheibrodos wrote:Died to double-move hydra after failing a 6% miscast rate on swiftness, then a scroll of fear failure. I swear these nonsense deaths only happen during CSDC.

Self-shaft not possible, or were you lowest level?

XuaXua wrote:
Cheibrodos wrote:Died to double-move hydra after failing a 6% miscast rate on swiftness, then a scroll of fear failure. I swear these nonsense deaths only happen during CSDC.

Self-shaft not possible, or were you lowest level?

Self-shaft takes time to complete.

Cheibrodos wrote:
XuaXua wrote:
Cheibrodos wrote:Died to double-move hydra after failing a 6% miscast rate on swiftness, then a scroll of fear failure. I swear these nonsense deaths only happen during CSDC.

Self-shaft not possible, or were you lowest level?

Self-shaft takes time to complete.

Saved my bacon twice, so it's not as long as you think. Maybe longer under chei, perhaps? I can't speak correctly to that.

I died ignominiously (Due mostly to poor and foolish playing when very tired)

However up to that point, digging a diagonal hole then bouncing bolts that double hit stuff in front of me and zapped things out of my LOS pretty much at will was definitely sweet, even with -2 air and -1 conjuration FoAE is actually fairly effective. (Would play again!)

Self shafting is:
-A 20 aut 'delay' (melee EV is reduced by 5 for the 'delay' duration and interruption is possible. In particular, if it would stop you taking stairs, it will probably stop your self-shafting too)
-'Entering floor' duration on the floor you land on (like taking a staircase, 'entering floor' is still 0.66 turns if it's a new floor, 1.33 turns if it isn't, modifiable by haste/slow)
Chei doesn't seem to enter it anywhere.

I should stop caring about 75k turns. After spending several thousands turns in Abyss I didn't have time to buff before escaping it (had some monsters in LoS and didn't want to get randomly teleported while killing them). Lost 60 HP during first turn after return and got surrounded by Shadow Dragons and Phantasmal Warriors, the latter seem to be immune to Shatter. Probably I would have better chances with Stoneskin, Swiftness, Agility, Resistance and no Flight though it could still be a death. I should have being wearing ring of MR instead of rF+/rPois during Vaults 5 entrance, that was primary reason of the death. Phantasmal Warriors are immune to fear and I didn't find any fans of gales or other evokables.

http://dobrazupa.org/morgue/Sandman25/m ... 114936.txt

Sandman25 wrote:I should stop caring about 75k turns. After spending several thousands turns in Abyss I didn't have time to buff before escaping it (had some monsters in LoS and didn't want to get randomly teleported while killing them). Lost 60 HP during first turn after return and got surrounded by Shadow Dragons and Phantasmal Warriors, the latter seem to be immune to Shatter. Probably I would have better chances with Stoneskin, Swiftness, Agility, Resistance and no Flight though it could still be a death. I should have being wearing ring of MR instead of rF+/rPois during Vaults 5 entrance, that was primary reason of the death. Phantasmal Warriors are immune to fear and I didn't find any fans of gales or other evokables.

http://dobrazupa.org/morgue/Sandman25/m ... 114936.txt

lol, instead of enumerating your excuses and letting us know how much you suck, what were some of the things you did right?

Moose wrote:lol, instead of enumerating your excuses and letting us know how much you suck, what were some of the things you did right?

I don't like to write about what I did right, it is not very interesting for me/readers and looks like bragging. Hopefully someone will learn from my mistakes and/or will let me know if I missed more mistakes.
But regarding your question, it was first time when I used Shatter with Vehumet and it was awesome, going for Vehumet instead of planned Kiku after getting Wild Magic on D1 was correct decision. Everything after that was wrong

Also I learned that I should have bought lamp of fire despite having Evocations 0, I barely survived vs Hellephant thanks to rod of summoning and my Evocations was already at about 10 (trained it from 0 in Abyss).

Sandman25 wrote:
Moose wrote:lol, instead of enumerating your excuses and letting us know how much you suck, what were some of the things you did right?

I don't like to write about what I did right, it is not very interesting for me/readers and looks like bragging. Hopefully someone will learn from my mistakes and/or will let me know if I missed more mistakes.
But regarding your question, it was first time when I used Shatter with Vehumet and it was awesome, going for Vehumet instead of planned Kiku after getting Wild Magic on D1 was correct decision. Everything after that was wrong
Also I learned that I should have bought lamp of fire despite having Evocations 0, I barely survived vs Hellephant thanks to rod of summoning and my Evocations was already at about 10 (trained it from 0 in Abyss).

I think your mistake was this:
AC: 15
EV: 14

Having not seen your replay I'm not sure what tactical errors may have been made, and it dosen't seem like you wasted a lot of XP (aside from getting shatter). I don't like earth magic, really, the single target spells aren't MP efficient aside from stone arrow, and the multitarget spells have some targetting quirks (LRD) or do nothing to many enemies (Shatter).

tabstorm wrote:I think your mistake was this:
AC: 15
EV: 14

Having not seen your replay I'm not sure what tactical errors may have been made, and it dosen't seem like you wasted a lot of XP (aside from getting shatter).

I had AC 23, EV 14 with Stoneskin and without draining, that could be AC 25 if I gave up on enchanting MDA and enchanted plain aux armours. Also I underestimated how many monsters will meet me after returning from Abyss, I was 2 tiles from stairs and wasn't going to fight but losing 60 HP after arrival made me realize I cannot make it to the stairs.

Perhaps walking into vaults with

Code:: MR +....

was also a factor...lots of monsters can show up in the vault but it only takes one good roll for you to get paralyzed or abyssed.

Lyrick wrote:Perhaps walking into vaults with
Code:
MR +....

was also a factor...lots of monsters can show up in the vault but it only takes one good roll for you to get paralyzed or abyssed.

I was using MR ring everywhere except Vaults 5. Vaults 5 has stairs completely surrounded by Vault Guards. I casted Shatter about 10 times in a row, every banisher who had entered into view died instantly, Vaults Wardens blocked stairs twice but died in 2-3 turns so MR didn't seem that useful. Unfortunately I got moved out of stairs by Bone Dragon and then I missed when a banisher had entered LoS and I tried to move around that Bone Dragon to reach stairs and was banished instantly. I think I should have killed that Bone Dragon by Iron Shot first, it moved me 2 tiles away from stairs.

Dang, Vaults:5 is tough when your only escape options are stairs, swiftness, summon butterflies, and boots of jumping. I made too much noise with Chain Lightning and knew I was dead when I went back down and two wardens locked down the stairs. I looped around inside the southwest vault, and instead of heading back to the stairs, and went for the southeast corner with the idea that I could attempt to fight things instead of escaping, which is what lead to my death.

I ran into Sandman25's ghost, didn't kill it, and died on that floor, are we both haunting this floor now?

Formicids should probably not do Vaults:5 for the third rune

I disagree, it's worth 3 points!

Oh, I didn't see HDA already got slimy. Carry on then~

HilariousDeathArtist wrote:I ran into Sandman25's ghost, didn't kill it, and died on that floor, are we both haunting this floor now?

Ouch, there was a FeBe ghost on the same floor in your game also. I suspect it's random and next time these ghosts can be in separate games.

Patashu wrote:Formicids should probably not do Vaults:5 for the third rune

With Axes or Shatter it is easily possible, many players got tier 2 bonus even without these tools.

You don't need axes or shatter or anything special imo, just need to have a good idea of how to work around the issues Formicids have.

Here is how I would approach V:5 as Fo:

1. Go downstairs and use Fear to disperse the welcome party (as I used to do on V:5 before the corners change, now I just random tele on all other races but Fo have.. unique problems)
2. If I have it, use Passage of Golubria to create some space, and make my way to one of the far corners of the map.
3. Quaff my pots and start killing enemies once I have gotten to the corner. It's probably actually good to train stealth on a Fo to attract less enemies. I used to hate on stealth a lot but I think it is good to get like 10 now.
4. Work from the outside rim inward like I would on any other character.

Another possibility is to just shaft in and hope for a decent landing where i can get to the rim somewhat safely, it's almost like random teleing.

Interesting. My strategy is more like:

1. Go downstairs and stairdance the entry vault with the guards + whatever random stuff pops out of the quadrants.
2. If a vault warden shows up, either buff and try to tank until you can kill it or go back upstairs before it seals.
3. If you end up on Vaults:4 with a vault warden on the stairs on V:5, shaft down and pray you don't land next to 3 ancient liches.
4. Otherwise just keep stairdancing until you can clear out enough to walk around safely.

As a Fo, I think I would generally not move too far from the stairs until I knew I had some sort of defensible point to run back to. And I would probably not feel great about entering Vaults:5 until I was sure I could tank enough to kill a vault warden if it happened to pop up early on. My FoAE was plenty strong by that point, and with makh's hp regen it wasn't really ever an issue.

The Tavern

CSDC S2 Week 2 - FoAE - CLOSED

CSDC S2 Week 2 - FoAE - CLOSED

Re: CSDC S2 Week 2 - FoAE

Re: CSDC S2 Week 2 - FoAE

Re: CSDC S2 Week 2 - FoAE

Re: CSDC S2 Week 2 - FoAE

Re: CSDC S2 Week 2 - FoAE

Re: CSDC S2 Week 2 - FoAE

Re: CSDC S2 Week 2 - FoAE

Re: CSDC S2 Week 2 - FoAE

Re: CSDC S2 Week 2 - FoAE

Re: CSDC S2 Week 2 - FoAE

Re: CSDC S2 Week 2 - FoAE

Re: CSDC S2 Week 2 - FoAE

Re: CSDC S2 Week 2 - FoAE

Re: CSDC S2 Week 2 - FoAE

Re: CSDC S2 Week 2 - FoAE

Re: CSDC S2 Week 2 - FoAE

Re: CSDC S2 Week 2 - FoAE

Re: CSDC S2 Week 2 - FoAE

Re: CSDC S2 Week 2 - FoAE

Re: CSDC S2 Week 2 - FoAE

Re: CSDC S2 Week 2 - FoAE

Re: CSDC S2 Week 2 - FoAE

Re: CSDC S2 Week 2 - FoAE

Re: CSDC S2 Week 2 - FoAE

Re: CSDC S2 Week 2 - FoAE

Re: CSDC S2 Week 2 - FoAE

Re: CSDC S2 Week 2 - FoAE

Re: CSDC S2 Week 2 - FoAE

Re: CSDC S2 Week 2 - FoAE

Re: CSDC S2 Week 2 - FoAE

Re: CSDC S2 Week 2 - FoAE

Re: CSDC S2 Week 2 - FoAE

Re: CSDC S2 Week 2 - FoAE

Re: CSDC S2 Week 2 - FoAE

Re: CSDC S2 Week 2 - FoAE

Re: CSDC S2 Week 2 - FoAE

Re: CSDC S2 Week 2 - FoAE

Re: CSDC S2 Week 2 - FoAE

Re: CSDC S2 Week 2 - FoAE

Re: CSDC S2 Week 2 - FoAE

Re: CSDC S2 Week 2 - FoAE

Re: CSDC S2 Week 2 - FoAE

Re: CSDC S2 Week 2 - FoAE

Re: CSDC S2 Week 2 - FoAE

Re: CSDC S2 Week 2 - FoAE

Re: CSDC S2 Week 2 - FoAE

Re: CSDC S2 Week 2 - FoAE

Re: CSDC S2 Week 2 - FoAE

Re: CSDC S2 Week 2 - FoAE