Strategies for Surviving Vaults 5

[XuaXua]

About the immolation thing: Seriously? It sounds like a silver bullet on paper, but that's exactly what makes me doubtful.

I works so well, and I use it so much (also vs. TRJ) that I once explicitly requested that it be removed or reworked as being too powerful. It was considered to be not that big a deal, and everyone got a bingo square that day.

What is so powerful in it? You make a ton of noise, and wake up half the level. At best it is a double-edged strategy, at worst it is a suicide.

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM.

[Quazifuji]

About the immolation thing: Seriously? It sounds like a silver bullet on paper, but that's exactly what makes me doubtful.

I works so well, and I use it so much (also vs. TRJ) that I once explicitly requested that it be removed or reworked as being too powerful. It was considered to be not that big a deal, and everyone got a bingo square that day.

What is so powerful in it? You make a ton of noise, and wake up half the level. At best it is a double-edged strategy, at worst it is a suicide.

In theory, it should be that way, but all I know is that I'm pretty sure I've done it the majority of the times I've done Vaults 5 (14 or so), and it's never failed me. It basically just replaces all the guards with a flame clouds instead. The flame clouds do enough damage to make most melee threats that come to the noise not super dangerous, and you've got clear line of fire so you can kill Vault Wardens with any ranged attack, not just smite-targeted or piercing ones. You can also just retreat up the stairs if anything goes bad. Overall, it hasn't felt like it's attracted that many more enemies than the times I've stairdanced the Vault Guards, and the clear line of fire and flame clouds make up for the extra enemies that come.

[Sar]

I used to do that and I liked it, except I would go into a corridor first and explode the guards second. The noise would attract monsters to the centre, but I would be at the rim by that time.

[XuaXua]

It's all about lighting that match and dancing around so they all re-burn themselves and anyone else, depending on how the board opens up for that opportunity. Wand of draining is super helpful for ignition.

[lucy_ferre]

I tried immolation on Vault:5 a couple of times. It's a fast way to remove the guards. And it doesn't cause as much chaos as using Shatter, Apocalypse, etc. Trying immolation on TRJ sounds like fun.

[XuaXua]

Trying immolation on TRJ sounds like fun.

LEt me assure you that it is, though I do like the Scroll of Vulnerability + Wand of Polymorphing route.

[Sandman25]

Trying immolation on TRJ sounds like fun.

LEt me assure you that it is, though I do like the Scroll of Vulnerability + Wand of Polymorphing route.

Does the polymorphed TRJ spawn jellies when hurt?

[stickyfingers]

No. It'd make no sense to do it otherwise.

[tedric]

+1 for Shatter, on my current GrEE (w/ 20+ Earth skill) it eliminates the welcome party entirely in two casts. Wait a few turns as things trickle into LOS, two more casts clears the screen of most things, including Wardens, and makes survivors trivial to mop up. Pop upstairs to replenish magic, rinse and repeat. I burned through a bit of permafood because of Shatter's massive hunger cost, but this seemed to wipe out about 2/3 of the level with minimal danger -- it was even more effective than the time I used immolation with a Ds that had flame cloud immunity!

[XuaXua]

it was even more effective than the time I used immolation with a Ds that had flame cloud immunity!

Sure, I'd love some Shatter, but it's not as build-agnostic.

[Rumbleguts]

edit: sorry, this advice has already been given

My last character was all set to enter V:5 and get that silver rune. Then I noticed I had all the good amulets for Slime Pits, and went and killed the Royal Jelly with a rod of ignition and scroll of immolation instead.

In this way, I survived Vaults 5, because another rune felt safer for that character to obtain.

(Okay terrible answer really. Like "don't go to Elf and elves there won't kill you". Still, nice to be aware you can do Slime instead and still win the game)

[Sphara]

Immolation strategy followed by mapping and cTeleporting OR scroll-blinking is nowadays the best way to go imo. Stairdancing is good as long as no warden shows up ,depending on the char of course.

You (and escpecially the shouting guards) are gonna create noise no matter what you'll do.

If you're not going the brute force way (like vampiric exec axe) the next 100 turns AFTER the welcoming party are crucial. Remember to concentrate on that before you control teleport in some of the corridors with low mana or reloading evocables or something. If you get time to rest in the corridor, it is going to be easier to pick those tough monsters in smaller packs.

[and into]

Do note that any enemies with flying essentially have rShatter++.

Refrigeration accomplishes much the same, but more quietly. (Be careful about the -Potion though.) If too much stuff that resists cold comes into LOS, just pop back upstairs and go explore somewhere else for a while. Eventually you'll clear out the entry and you can then work through the level carefully.

Keep in mind that the staircases are centrally located and enemies tend to wander by there regularly, even after you cleared out the welcoming party.

Take advantage of your ability to do controlled teleports on V:5, in general. It is a good idea to maintain two lines of retreat as much as possible. If you get into trouble, retreat along one way for a while, luring the enemies that way, then use a controlled teleport to go back to where you started the retreat, and go down the other path you kept clear. Clear out the perimeters and corners first, this means you should have at least two safe places to cTele to if you get overwhelmed while clearing the inside of one of the quadrants.

Lamp of fire and phial of floods are great to use in the corridors, as are ?summoning and summon spells/abilities in general. Fan of gales can be handy to clear some space while stair-dancing, or if you let yourself get surrounded. Don't use stone of tremors ever. The elemental evoke items will recharge quickly since you gain exp so rapidly on V:5.

[and into]

Also, just a general point: The welcoming party is not that scary compared to the other stuff on the level.

Once you know to expect it, the entrance only tends to be a problem if some tough non-vault guard enemies happened to spawn near the stairs in addition to the usual gang. The only time I can remember getting killed by the circle of humans was when one of the guards spawned with a glaive of distortion and teleported me right into the middle of some nasty stuff in one of the quadrant, so even that was more of an indirect kill.

There is a value in killing off the guards quickly (fewer turns for liches to show up and complicate matters), but there is also a lot of value in not making a ton of noise and attracting things (like liches!) that are actually dangerous when you are level 20 or 21, which the guards should not be at that stage of the game. (With exception of bad weapon spawns—distortion, holy wrath when you are a demonspawn, etc.)

Clearing the quadrants of V:5 carefully is a lot more important than having some strategy for dealing with a bunch of orc knights that traded their battle cries for better eyesight.

[XuaXua]

Refrigeration accomplishes much the same, but more quietly.

Immolate, then refrigerate to solve that problem.

[Quazifuji]

To me, the big benefit of immolation isn't that it makes the guards not as dangerous (I agree that they're far from the biggest danger of V5), but that is stops them from blocking line of fire, gives you a giant wall of fire clouds, and means that you don't take a few turns of guard attacks if you try to retreat up the stairs. It attacks a lot of enemies, but they don't all show up at the same time, and between having clear line of fire and any enemies trying to get into melee range having to pass through 3-5 fire clouds on the way, it's usually pretty easy to kill enemies as they arrive. Eventually their numbers might build up, but fortunately, you're already standing on the stairs, so you can just leave as long as you make Vault Wardens high priority and don't let any constricting enemies reach you.

I used to do that and I liked it, except I would go into a corridor first and explode the guards second. The noise would attract monsters to the centre, but I would be at the rim by that time.

I like quaffing hasting and blinking into a corridor before exploding the guards if I have good ranged attacks and not good fire resistance. You can't retreat up the stairs, but enemies will only come from two directions instead of all of them. Most of the enemies attracted to the noise will come from the center, where the fire clouds will damage them, and with this strategy you can position yourself so that the fire clouds are at the edge of LoS, so even ranged enemies will have to go through them (while staying at the stairs means ranged enemies can fire at you from the other side of the clouds). Some enemies will come from behind too, but usually not too many, from my experience, and anyone doing Vaults 5 should be more than capable of handling them.

Also, if you're worshipping Qazlal, it's really fun to do immolaton -> disaster area -> elemental force. Tons of explosions, everything on screen dies, and you end up with 10 or so fire elementals.

[XuaXua]

To me, the big benefit of immolation isn't that it makes the guards not as dangerous (I agree that they're far from the biggest danger of V5), but that is stops them from blocking line of fire, gives you a giant wall of fire clouds, and means that you don't take a few turns of guard attacks if you try to retreat up the stairs. It attacks a lot of enemies, but they don't all show up at the same time, and between having clear line of fire and any enemies trying to get into melee range having to pass through 3-5 fire clouds on the way, it's usually pretty easy to kill enemies as they arrive. Eventually their numbers might build up, but fortunately, you're already standing on the stairs, so you can just leave as long as you make Vault Wardens high priority and don't let any constricting enemies reach you.

You can also read another scroll of immolation; best done when something un-immolated looks like it's about to die by fire cloud.

[Psiweapon]

(rF++ and rElec, even through !resistance)

haste, downstairs, disc of storms, immolation, disc of storms spam, wands and elemental evokables, teleport and blink spam until reaching a safe place.

[Jeremiah]

Related question: If I use immolation while standing in the middle of the guards and I'm worshipping Makhleb, do I get the healing from Makhleb before or after I take the damage from the guards exploding?

[lucy_ferre]

After.

[XuaXua]

After.

After each individual explosion in a chain, or after all chained-explosions have ceased?

[lucy_ferre]

After the chain of explosions, not each one.