Tuesday, 27th May 2014, 19:29 by tasonir
Statue form with Chei is powerful. It's also extremely tedious. And one mistake, especially around water, will give monsters enormous amounts of time to hit on you. I was really, really getting frustrated using it in swamp on my OpEE. So you're autoexploring in swamp, you can swim, you're in the middle of a lake. A hydra comes into view 7 tiles away. You now have to cast statue form, stone skin, and flight. Because statue octopodes no longer swim - you won't drown, but you get water penalties and fumble attacks. Regeneration would probably be nice, and if it's something with ranged attacks instead of a hydra you want repel missiles, etc.
This becomes extremely tedious. I put up with it because of undying love of statue form and chei, but I wouldn't blame anyone who thought this was torturous. You also have really, really think before you move - a single step into water can take up to SIX turns (1.0 base move, +100% Chei, + 50% statue form, + 100% water penalty (this penalty is random, but can go up to 100%)). Flight removes the last water penalty part of course, if you have it, and if you haven't forgotten to cast it. Checking your buff status before taking a step is a great way to slow down your game and make lots of mistakes.
Usually by the time I had buffed up whatever I had found was already in melee range of me. I mean I suppose that's nice when I can't walk, but it just shows how long you're taking to prepare for things. I was thinking about writing up some proposals to address some of this stuff, but haven't done it yet. Maybe later today.