What bad advice would you give to people you don't like?

[Hurkyl]

Pfff, you didn't fight mara with the bread, you just kited mara with bread in your hand until he cloned you...DUH!

(not a great idea since he has bolt of fire, you know)

If he hit you with bolt of fire, you could just run away and heal up before reengaging.

[Turukano]

Pfff, you didn't fight mara with the bread, you just kited mara with bread in your hand until he cloned you...DUH!

Feature request: replace bread rations with hamburger buns and let them cause illness when thrown at enemies.

[flamingo]

If you start the game as an Ice Elementalist and find the "Book of the Sky", you should NEVER memorize Airstrike and Tornado, because that's Air magic and you are an Ice Elementalist.

[Greyr]

Question the developers.

[banei]

Play Dungeon Crawl

[Sar]

@flaming: Well, I would most certainly never learn Airstrike on an Ice Elementalist, and would only learn Tornado if I intended to do Zigs.

[RichardGamingo]

There's no worse advice than do whatever you want. If that one piece of advice can be somehow subverted or destroyed a person can win, but it is some hellaciously bad advice if given all srs lyk. For instance, what if I want to play without ever looking at my HP bar? So I am not looking and then bam, so many consecutive fights later and I fall over dead vs a common GIANT COCKAROACH

Spoiler: show

!!!!! My advice for bad advice is do whatever you want and don't look back!

Best Regards,
RG

[Greyr]

Write a guide revolving around this run on the wiki.

  Code:

 Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup version 0.14.0-2-gd2dacb9 (tiles) character file.

367 Greyr the Ruinous (level 6, 0/36 HPs)
             Began as a High Elf Conjurer on Aug 11, 2014.
             Was a Follower of Jiyva.
             Killed themself with a badly aimed fireball (9 damage)
             ... on Level 3 of the Dungeon.
             The game lasted 00:05:53 (2909 turns).

Greyr the Ruinous (High Elf Conjurer)               Turns: 2909, Time: 00:05:53

HP   0/36        AC  4     Str  7      XL: 6   Next:  2%
MP  10/18        EV 13     Int 21      God: Jiyva [*.....]
Gold 95          SH  0     Dex 16      Spells:  2 memorised, 10 levels left

rFire  . . .     SeeInvis .     k - +0 falchion
rCold  . . .     Clarity  .     a - +0 robe
rNeg   + . .     Conserve .     (no shield)
rPois  .         rCorr    .     (no helmet)
rElec  .         rRot     .     n - +1 cloak
SustAb . .       Spirit   .     (no gloves)
rMut   .         Warding  .     (no boots)
Saprov . . .     Stasis   .     (no amulet)
MR     .....                    (no ring)
                                s - ring of positive energy

@: not resistant to hostile enchantments, fairly stealthy
A: no striking features
a: Request Jelly, Renounce Religion


You were on level 3 of the Dungeon.
You worshipped Jiyva.
Jiyva was aware of your devotion.
You were not hungry.

You visited 1 branch of the dungeon, and saw 3 of its levels.
You also visited: Sewer.

You collected 95 gold pieces.

Inventory:

Hand weapons
 k - a +0,+0 falchion (weapon)
Armour
 a - a +0 robe (worn)
 n - a +1 cloak (worn)
Magical devices
 e - a wand of fireball (8) {unknown}
 i - a wand of digging (8)
 p - a wand of magic darts (6)
Comestibles
 b - 5 bread rations
 h - 14 sultanas
Scrolls
 f - 2 scrolls of random uselessness {unknown}
 g - 3 scrolls of enchant armour {unknown}
 l - a scroll of remove curse {unknown}
 o - a scroll of immolation {unknown}
 q - a scroll of magic mapping
 r - a scroll of teleportation {unknown}
 t - a scroll of noise {unknown}
 u - a scroll of amnesia {unknown}
Jewellery
 m - an uncursed ring of fire
 s - a ring of positive energy (left hand)
Potions
 d - 3 potions of curing
 j - a potion of might
 w - a potion of restore abilities {unknown}
Books
 c - a book of Conjurations   
   
   Spells                             Type                      Level
   *Magic Dart                        Conjuration                  1
   *Searing Ray                       Conjuration                  2
   Dazzling Spray                     Conjuration/Hexes            3
   Fulminant Prism                    Conjuration/Hexes            4
   Iskenderun's Mystic Blast          Conjuration                  4
   Iskenderun's Battlesphere          Conjuration/Charms           5


   Skills:
 - Level 2.1 Dodging
 - Level 2.1 Stealth
 + Level 4.3 Spellcasting
 * Level 7.1 Conjurations


You had 10 spell levels left.
You knew the following spells:

 Your Spells              Type           Power        Failure   Level  Hunger
a - Magic Dart            Conj           ####         1%          1    None
b - Searing Ray           Conj           ####..       1%          2    #......


Dungeon Overview and Level Annotations

Branches:
Dungeon (3/15)           

Altars:
Elyvilon
Jiyva

Message History

You kill the orc!
The searing ray hits the orc.
The orc is heavily wounded.
The searing ray hits the orc.
You kill the orc!
The searing ray hits the orc.
You kill the orc!
Items here: %% )) [[
You see here a falchion.
k - a falchion
k - a +0,+0 falchion (weapon)
Zapping: i - a tapered fluorescent wand
Press: ? - help, Shift-Dir - straight line
Nothing appears to happen.
i - a wand of digging {zapped: 1}
Zapping: e - a twisted glass wand
Press: ? - help, Shift-Dir - straight line
The fireball explodes! The fireball engulfs you!
Jiyva shields your delectables from destruction.
You die...

#.........   .
#......... ...
...............#
...............#
##.............#
 #.............#
##.............#
.....#######.%.#
.....#     #...#
.....#     #@..#
.....#######)..#
#..............#
#..............#
...............#
...............#
....#######....#
....#     #....#
....#     #....#


There were no monsters in sight!

Vanquished Creatures
  A big kobold (Sewer)
  A big fish (Sewer)
  An orc priest (D:3)
  2 adders
  4 green rats
  2 worms
  3 giant geckos (D:1)
  4 oozes (D:2)
  3 orcs (D:3)
  5 giant cockroaches
  10 hobgoblins
  2 jackals (Sewer)
  3 ball pythons
  6 bats
  5 giant newts
  4 goblins
  4 kobolds
  9 rats
69 creatures vanquished.

Vanquished Creatures (others)
  An ooze (D:3)
  A giant cockroach (D:3)
  2 kobolds (D:3)
4 creatures vanquished.

Grand Total: 73 creatures vanquished

Notes
Turn   | Place    | Note
--------------------------------------------------------------
     0 | D:1      | Greyr, the High Elf Conjurer, began the quest for the Orb.
     0 | D:1      | Reached XP level 1. HP: 11/11 MP: 4/4
   469 | D:1      | Reached XP level 2. HP: 9/17 MP: 0/6
   949 | D:1      | Reached skill level 5 in Conjurations
  1387 | D:2      | Reached XP level 3. HP: 21/21 MP: 2/8
  1553 | D:2      | Learned a level 2 spell: Searing Ray
  1759 | D:2      | Found a viscous altar of Jiyva.
  1810 | D:2      | Became a worshipper of Jiyva Jarosch the Shapeless
  2015 | D:3      | Found a glowing drain.
  2062 | D:3      | Reached XP level 4. HP: 20/27 MP: 4/12
  2109 | Sewer    | Entered a sewer
  2133 | Sewer    | Reached skill level 6 in Conjurations
  2301 | Sewer    | Reached XP level 5. HP: 31/31 MP: 8/15
  2364 | Sewer    | Noticed a big kobold
  2369 | Sewer    | Killed a big kobold
  2394 | Sewer    | Found a white marble altar of Elyvilon.
  2620 | D:3      | Acquired Jiyva's first power
  2693 | D:3      | Found a white marble altar of Elyvilon.
  2899 | D:3      | Reached skill level 7 in Conjurations
  2899 | D:3      | Reached XP level 6. HP: 8/36 MP: 14/18
  2909 | D:3      | Killed themself with a badly aimed fireball

[Lasty]

Jiyva shields your delectables from destruction.

You may have died, but at least your precious delectables are safe.

[Greyr]

Jiyva shields your delectables from destruction.

You may have died, but at least your precious delectables are safe.

Jiyva is over powered.

[XuaXua]

Didn't shield his delectables from being kicked in, though.

[savageorange]

All of it.

Because quantity is a quality all its own.

[and into]

Okay on second thought let's just stick to talking about Crawl.

[duvessa]

I thought that was satire, considering the context and the title of the thread

[Turukano]

In case you get trouble in a zig floor just stairdance with the previous floor.

[Turukano]

When you are in a dangerous situation with low HP in tomb, don't read a scroll of teleportation immediately. First read a scroll of silence to prevent greater mummies from tormenting you - and then read a scroll of teleportation.

[Hopeless]

When you are in a dangerous situation with low HP in tomb, don't read a scroll of teleportation immediately. First read a scroll of silence to prevent greater mummies from tormenting you - and then read a scroll of teleportation.

Or read the Teleportation Scroll as planned but quaff a potion of Lignification right after to get back some hp and raise your AC...

[XuaXua]

Pfff, you didn't fight mara with the bread, you just kited mara with bread in your hand until he cloned you...DUH!

(not a great idea since he has bolt of fire, you know)

Yeah, that'll ruin the loaf.

[Sandman25]

Don't read unknown scrolls if scroll of identity is already known. Eventually you will find enough scrolls of identity and it's better to have 2 unknown scrolls than 1 scroll of blinking. You don't want to waste the scroll of blinking, it's too precious.

[Sprucery]

Pfff, you didn't fight mara with the bread, you just kited mara with bread in your hand until he cloned you...DUH!

(not a great idea since he has bolt of fire, you know)

Yeah, that'll ruin the loaf.

Don't you like toast?

[Greyr]

Spelunky is basically the same thing.

[Rep Henry Clay]

• Kill everything

This point needs more elaboration:

• You know how in the Pokemon games you should fight every trainer so that your Pokemon get strong and grow? DCSS is the same way, but with monsters.
• Don't skip a floor planning to come back later. That XP from Sigmund, Grinder, etc. will be all but worthless since you're at a higher level now and items get better the farther down you go so why go where there are worse items?
• If you skip a floor and have to retreat back to it, odds are that dangerous unique will be waiting for. Paranoia pays.

[MrRokkomies]

Conserve your spells! Be carefull not to cast buffs un-necessarily. You can probably take out that Hydra without any buffs, better not waste them. (I actually find my self doing this quite often... First I learn haste, then I end up fighting tough monsters without it.)

[Sphara]

So, an orc wizard picked up one halberd of freezing from a deceased gnoll,. Do not worry, he is not going to hit you with it. Because.. he is a wizard, right? Wizards use magic, right?

[xentronium]

Monsters can become friendly if you just talk to them...so any time you see a monster press 't' twice to talk to it. Keep on trying to talk as it approaches you! This is especially important for dangerous monsters you aren't sure you can beat...you want to try to talk to these even if they start hitting you.

[XuaXua]

Either following TSO or having Necromutation castable is a requirement for any post-Zot, extended gameplay.

[Turukano]

When you worship Cheibriados consider that he slows your movement speed. To counteract this, learn haste as soon as possible and cast it whenever dangerous foes come into line of sight.

[Turukano]

Death's Door is a strong spell which makes you invincible. Cast it and start tabbing.

[Psiweapon]

If both your toon and a monster are low on HP after a long slugfest, just press on, monsters get weaker as they lose HP and if a lot of your attacks seemed to not connect it's just that the monster had a really lucky string of rolls bound to break at any moment's notice.

Never try to shoot bolts of draining from behind your undead minions, even if they are immune that doesn't mean they won't get angry about it.

Kraken tentacles are particularly weak to melee attacks, which have a chance to chop them off outright, so don't let their speed scare you and melee them ASAP.

The damage bonus of Portal Projectile and the AC-ignoring property of bolts of penetration make them a great combination, especially against monsters with shields.

If you are playing a Vampire and are at bloodless, make sure to stack as many regeneration sources as possible (troll hide, rings, spell) to counteract their diminished efficiency. The rings are okay but the troll hide is by far the best of the lot (superior to troll leather armour, actually)

If you use rods, make sure to wield them while exploring so their recharge rate is boosted (it's only 3/5th as efficient while in your inventory)

Depleted elemental evokers are useless, so don't bother carrying them around while they're recharging.

The Rod of Striking is one of the best weapons for any character with M&F > 16 (rod mindelay) and some investment in evocations (additional damage that ignores AC)

Lehudib's Crystal Spear loses damage potential as it travels so make sure to close distance ASAP with the monsters that can cast it (deep troll earth mages, frost giants, ogre magi)

[Jeremiah]

Crawl was so much better when victory dancing was a thing. You should play the earlier versions because of this.

[Sar]

Death's Door is a strong spell which makes you invincible. Cast it and start tabbing.

what's wrong with that

[XuaXua]

Your troll should worship Gozag.

[Sandman25]

Death's Door is a strong spell which makes you invincible. Cast it and start tabbing.

what's wrong with that

Crawl does not display how long it will last (even approximately) and how many turns you will have after expiration warning. I would value the spell much more if you got something like "Deaths's Door will last 15-25 turns" after casting it and "Death's Door is expiring, it will end in 3-5 turns" as expiration warning.
For similar reason I read scroll of blinking after getting flight expiration warning.

[XuaXua]

Death's Door is a strong spell which makes you invincible. Cast it and start tabbing.

what's wrong with that

Crawl does not display how long it will last (even approximately) and how many turns you will have after expiration warning. I would value the spell much more if you got something like "Deaths's Door will last 15-25 turns" after casting it and "Death's Door is expiring, it will end in 3-5 turns" as expiration warning.

Accidental "thank".

The "concept" of a turn is not reliable, as every action does not take the same amount of time, and not every player knows the exact AUT consumption of every action. This is why, I believe, these sorts of warnings are generalized.

[Sar]

I think they're generalized because they're randomized, you're not supposed to sit with a notepad and count turns - "so I have 16 turns, on the first I cast Haste..." etc., you're supposed to just play the game.

And it's a super-strong spell regardless of those restrictions.

[Sandman25]

The "concept" of a turn is not reliable, as every action does not take the same amount of time, and not every player knows the exact AUT consumption of every action. This is why, I believe, these sorts of warnings are generalized.

What do you mean? Turn is displayed in game by default and I think it is quite possible to change "DDoor" indicator to something like "DDoor (15.0)" after casting the spell and then to "DDoor (13.3)" if player did an action which took 1.7 turn. I think having basically no idea about duration is even more confusing.

Edit. To clarify, this "(15.0)" is not a leak of info. It is minimal duration before getting DDoor expiration (15.0 is just an example, for theoretical case when DDoor duration is 20+d10 turns and expiration warning is displayed before 2+d3 turn prior to actual expiration).

[Sandman25]

I think they're generalized because they're randomized, you're not supposed to sit with a notepad and count turns - "so I have 16 turns, on the first I cast Haste..." etc., you're supposed to just play the game.

And it's a super-strong spell regardless of those restrictions.

If I don't understand how spell works and it can kill me, I am supposed to avoid the spell completely.
I regularly use the spell for escaping dangerous zig floors and also used it in extended as Fe since it does not have high HP anyway. And even then the spell almost killed me because I didn't know how long it will last after expiration warning and eventually had to use Revivification. If I read tele scroll after getting expiration warning, what happens first - teleport or DDoor expiration? What if I have control tele active? Those are quite important questions.

Also I remember that my death to Jorgrun triggered my research on similar issue with Petrify, its duration should not be hidden "to avoid confusion".

[Grinoldy]

Advice:
1: don't butcher corpses the meat kills you instantly
2: when you see Sigmund just go straight at him he has 1 hp
3: ignore all advice above play as ant race and just burrow to the last floor and you will find the orb of zot without needing to get three runes

[Turukano]

In case there are annoying spectators in your webtiles game you can just press ctrl-q to get rid of them.

[Sandman25]

• Rod of clouds is good at 0 evocations, use it in every dangerous fight.
• Drop that cursed ring of teleportation and never pick it up again.
• Never retreat when worshiping Makhleb: if you can't kill something, just summon Greater Servant. If you can kill monsters alone, still summon Lesser Servant to speed it up.
• If monster's description says "It looks easy", don't stop tabbing. Eventually it will die despite having might status and vampiric weapon.
• Don't train Haste if you have a wand of Haste. There are enough scrolls of recharging in every game.
• Don't train Spellcasting to reduce spell hunger. There is enough food in every game.

[McGeekster]

Don't worry, that cyclops won't deal 45 damage with a single giant rock. And deep elf demonologists hardly EVER banish you, so you can easily fight three at a time. Oh, not to mention, summon butterflies is the best spell in the game, so its the only one you'll ever need.

[Rumbleguts]

Never worship Chei. Your reduced movement speed will never ever make up for the vastly increased spellpower, spell success rate, reduced amount of exp needed to train magic skills, AC, and EV that he provides.
If you must worship Chei, don't bother to train invocations because Slouch is not as good as Ru's Apocalypse and Step from Time is not as good as Zin's Sanctuary. Why would you train for abilities that are suboptimal. You should put yourself in time out for not worshipping a better god (haha get it time out cuz chei)

Never worship Xom, because even though it might teach you how to plan and use resources carefully and survive unexpected threats, he will just kill you outright.
If you must worship Xom, never abandon him because his wrath is just as bad as worshiping him anyways.

If you worship Kiku, hold out for a quick blade or demon weapon to pain brand. You do not want to brand something lame like a scimitar or morningstar or dagger. Use acquirement scrolls and choose weapon to get a demon whip even if you already have a +5 morningstar. Wait what am I saying you should obviously get the Necronomicon because Kiku wants you to cast necromancy and not hit things with a weapon

Lajatangs are not as good as triple swords or exec axes or bardiches so why would you use one. A greatsword has the exact same damage and accuracy. The fact that lajatangs require about half the exp of a greatsword to reach min delay won't matter in the end since crawl has more exp than you'll ever need right

[Rumbleguts]

Training a skill with an aptitude less than 0 is sub-optimal. You should never do it. Ideally you would only train skills with very positive aptitudes so you need to play races with good offense and defense skills. So only play HO, Mf, Gr, and Mi. Do not play Ha even though they have good off/def skills because they cannot use the big weapons.
For this reason if you play a Mu you should only ever train necromancy, and you should never bother to train Spellcasting on any race besides DE, Sp, Og, HE, Fo, VS, and the occasional purple Dr.
Also note that Dg are terrible due to their skill aptitudes.

[Arrhythmia]

You should marry her.

[A boy and his god]

Don't worry about Grinder.

[XuaXua]

Hoard potions of Experience to counteract Draining effects.

[xentronium]

If you get lost in the abyss, just stay where you are and your parents will come find you.

[GlassGo]

This is not much worse than fighting Mara with a loaf of bread, and THAT was meant to be serious advice by some.

Actually, you'll want to unwield that unrandart +10 broad axe of freezing before Mara clone you, believe me.

[Sar]

Hitting Mara with it also works.

Edit: let's put it another way. Assuming that is your best weapon, wouldn't you want to use it to fight Mara? And if you don't want to fight Mara (which is the reasonable course of action most often than not), why waste even half of a turn?

[GlassGo]

Hitting Mara is works, except there are three Mara that blink all the way, your char is "of Chei", and to wield a weapon you need only a turn.
At least it help to survive your clone - he can be very dangerous.