Rule of thumb- Hells or Pan?

[Vanguardan]

Obviously there are tons of different answers depending on build and drops.

Assuming you have all the appropriate resistances, which is a better place to go first?

[Shtopit]

The few times I went extended, I did Hell first. I think Hell effects do add some difficulty, but you know what you are going to meet, so in general you can load up your resistances and avoid the worst damage spikes.

[Vanguardan]

Gotcha, thanks. I forget, is there a deity that protects specifically from hell effects?

[Sprucery]

Zin gives protection up to 50% with full piety.

I usually go to Pan first, because of the Hell effects.

[crawlnoob]

I find Pan to be easier in general, but Hell is much easier to get out of if you need to go. They both suck.

[stoneychips]

The few times I went extended, I did Hell first. I think Hell effects do add some difficulty, but you know what you are going to meet, so in general you can load up your resistances and avoid the worst damage spikes.

I am more in this school as well. But I usually only go if I can get 3 pips of the optimal resistance (particularly the fire or cold hells - cold can be very nasty though).

Had some success with Hells in earlier versions, mostly, stacking up those resistances and just following wiki advice. Have tried Pan first a couple times since with characters I thought had a decent shot, and either just barely made it out with a rune or two, or gotten walloped.

I feel like on the whole Hell tosses fewer wide open layouts at you? Again with some nasty exceptions like Cocytus and certain end floors of Iron City. With Pan you can go through so many floors and vaults, though... You're rolling against the probability of meeting scary individual monster effects and evil layouts (especially the sort with lords and small armies near exits), even if you aren't getting hit by random smitey Hell effects.

[edgefigaro]

If I'm not afraid of collecting mutations: Pan. Get all the pan runes and then steamroll hell for the win, saving tomb for last. This is my general play.

I generally skip extended entirely if I am afraid of mutations though.

I frequently try to set up for Tomb before either. This decision gets made at U1 or earlier.

Edit: It also varies by character. Some characters plan to get decent amounts of XP in hell and maybe a few items, others plan to get no XP. Pan is a much more steady source of XP.

If you are specifically well suited for a particular hell you may want to do it first.

Some characters may find Holy Pan to be the deadliest thing left in the game, so Pan gets saved for last.

Mostly I don't play extended if its not tournament time.

[Vanguardan]

So if I'm with Zin and have good resistances, I have good protection for both Hell and Pan, and Pan could be easier. Is TSO always a better choice, or am I good to go with a Holy Wrath weapon and recite/vit/sanctuary?

Edit: I'm talking about my generic MiFi^Zin with axes and shields.

[Scalding Steam]

TBH in my experience it pretty much dosen't matter. If you can do Pan you can do Hell, and vice versa.

[Shtopit]

If you go tso, remember that you won't receive hp on kill in holypan. That was how I first lost my character in extended

[KoboldLord]

Pan is generally easier, but when I go into Hell I know that I have to rush through six levels per branch and find an item in the seventh, and I will have made progress. If I go to Pan, I may randomly find myself slogging through fifty or sixty levels without finding what I'm looking for or even making any progress towards that last lousy Rune.

[Majang]

Pan for me, because I take the opportunity to collect more experience. Hell means to go in, dive deep and get out ASAP, so you won't be much stronger after you are done.

[4Hooves2Appendages]

So if I'm with Zin and have good resistances, I have good protection for both Hell and Pan, and Pan could be easier. Is TSO always a better choice, or am I good to go with a Holy Wrath weapon and recite/vit/sanctuary?

Edit: I'm talking about my generic MiFi^Zin with axes and shields.

In my view Zin is strictly better than TSO. Sanctuary is much more powerful than anything TSO has to offer. If you already have holy wrath weapon, that further erodes the usefulness of TSO. Note that you can switch between them fairly easily. Getting Zin piety back to full after switching is easy. Getting TSO piety back up after switching doesn't take long in Pan/Hell, but it might be safer in Crypt.

That said, I like that TSO reduces downtime with heal/mana-on-kill. Also TSO summons are extremely good in Pan/Hell. With the amount of piety around, it's pretty much possible to always have one or two active. This is especially useful on Rune floors.

[svendre]

Hell first for reliability
Pan first for higher risk ventures to gain higher scores

Hell vestibule is a good late game stash location. Since you can get out of hell much more easily, you can refine your gear and push up your xp level potentially before you're ready to deal with any bosses. You can scope out the paths to the stairs to level 7 without entering level 7 for all four before tackling any level 7 if you really need to. You can also cherry pick the order in which to complete them based on your strengths and weaknesses.

Since you have no guaranteed exit on Pan, and also since you cannot re-try gaining the runes on boss levels, I generally make my final adjustments to memorized spells, gear and inventory before entering. I assume that I'm going in with a configuration that I'll never get to tweak from a stash ever again until it's just time to win the game. I also generally have the path through Zot5 cleared before entering pan.

The case for entering pan first and earlier might be if you're going all out for high scores. Since it's lacking the hell effects, it's probably a bit easier overall. If you're trying to accelerate the rate of incoming xp more quickly in order to minimize turns needed to grab easier runes, I'd venture it's a little safer.

[Majang]

The 'no-guaranteed exit' of Pan is a myth. Granted, most Pan-floors have no direct exit (many do, though); the exit via the Abyss is really about as threatening and as tedious as crossing a not so busy street in broad daylight by the time you enter Pan for your extended game. That presumes collecting the Abyss rune first, though. I think almost all Pan floors have an exit through the Abyss.

[Siegurt]

The 'no-guaranteed exit' of Pan is a myth. Granted, most Pan-floors have no direct exit (many do, though); the exit via the Abyss is really about as threatening and as tedious as crossing a not so busy street in broad daylight by the time you enter Pan for your extended game. That presumes collecting the Abyss rune first, though. I think almost all Pan floors have an exit through the Abyss.

You are incorrect, most pan floors have no exit except to another pan floor. Abyssal exits are probably slightly less than half of all the available exits (and some floors have both)

Estimating based on observation (which is notoriously inaccurate) i would estimate an average of about one floor in 6 or 7 has an exit out of pan (with there being a lot of variance, you might see 20 floors with none or 6 in a row with an exit)

[Majang]

Hmm. I count myself not as particularly lucky, but I cannot recall a single time where I wanted to leave Pan and couldn't for lack of an exit (mostly through the Abyss). But I take your word for it - I cannot read enough code to verify my claim.

[Majang]

It turns out I was wrong when I said that most levels of Pan have an exit through the Abyss. It's all of them. I chased my poor little gnoll through 15 levels so far, and every single one of them had an Abyss portal. If that has not been the case in the old days, it probably must have changed to that state in one of the ten last new editions of crawl. As I said earlier, I can't recall ever having to defer from leaving Pan.
So, I restate that the no-exit-available trait of Pan is a myth. You can leave from each level, if you don't mind going through the Abyss.

Edit: For the record, two of those 15 levels also had a hassle-free exit to Depths, on top of the Abyss portal.

[Siegurt]

It turns out I was wrong when I said that most levels of Pan have an exit through the Abyss. It's all of them. I chased my poor little gnoll through 15 levels so far, and every single one of them had an Abyss portal. If that has not been the case in the old days, it probably must have changed to that state in one of the ten last new editions of crawl. As I said earlier, I can't recall ever having to defer from leaving Pan.
So, I restate that the no-exit-available trait of Pan is a myth. You can leave from each level, if you don't mind going through the Abyss.

Edit: For the record, two of those 15 levels also had a hassle-free exit to Depths, on top of the Abyss portal.

Yes, the chances were changed in 2014:
https://github.com/crawl/crawl/commit/f ... 81af0a4a2d
According to the commit with 0 runes you have a 5% chance of a pan exit, and a 25% chance of an abyss exit, with 5 runes you have a 75% chance of an abyss exit and a 20% chance of a pan exit per level.

However it appears the abyss exit chance function has a bug, and you end up with a 100% chance at an abyssal exit.

Edit: filed a bug report about it.

[Siegurt]

It turns out I was wrong when I said that most levels of Pan have an exit through the Abyss. It's all of them. I chased my poor little gnoll through 15 levels so far, and every single one of them had an Abyss portal. If that has not been the case in the old days, it probably must have changed to that state in one of the ten last new editions of crawl. As I said earlier, I can't recall ever having to defer from leaving Pan.
So, I restate that the no-exit-available trait of Pan is a myth. You can leave from each level, if you don't mind going through the Abyss.

Edit: For the record, two of those 15 levels also had a hassle-free exit to Depths, on top of the Abyss portal.

Yes, the chances were changed in 2014:
https://github.com/crawl/crawl/commit/f ... 81af0a4a2d
According to the commit with 0 runes you have a 5% chance of a pan exit, and a 25% chance of an abyss exit, with 5 runes you have a 75% chance of an abyss exit and a 20% chance of a pan exit per level.

However it appears the abyss exit chance function has a bug, and you end up with a 100% chance at an abyssal exit.

Edit: filed a bug report about it.

And fixed: https://github.com/crawl/crawl/commit/45b0a09d6633

Get out of pan while you can, suckahs!

[Majang]

Arrrgh, I really shouldn't have told you...

[nago]

image.png (89.74 KiB) Viewed 6251 times

I really don't get it.

It is annoying to scum abyss to find unique lords' floors because because after surviving a dozen of its level it's probable a char can survive as many as he want, but it's reasonable and fun to made necessary to scum and clear a great number of floors after collecting all the runes?

I mean, ok, the difficulty after that may drastically increase if the runes were stolen due the Lords' chasing, but I still don't get it.

[Nebukadnezar]

Hell then Pan
1. The 4 Hells are each 'specialized' the way danger is coming.
Strong chars which are immune to everything might not notice but others can change gear accordingly.

2. Mutation
Hell (Dis) has much less malmutation. So if you want to keep your set of mutations (whether they are good or because of lack of potions): hell first

3. Exit
You're standing on the exit already when you enter a Hell floor

4. Loot
Pan has some goodies lying around (with the exception of a few floors where loot is concentrated) but Hell has the loot concentrated close to the rune. Sometimes I got the missing item after getting the loot from the easy (in relation to my chars) Hell rune.

5. Hell levels you can retreat from.
Pan floors are gone (with the exception of dem. rune) if you leave them.
So if you are still lacking something to deal with a certain Pan Lord (which you cannot select): do Hell first.

I might avoid a certain Hell until later when my char is lacking something.
Pan has a bigger variety of threats. Usually I want to train my stealth on every char in Hell for walking unnoticed in Pan even with strong chars.
Me: 79 * 15 runes

# of Pand. levels in my last 15 games:
22
23
25
26
27
28
29 2
31
32
33
34
36 2
46
(I never look for dem. rune on random floors but hope to get a special floor where I know that the dem. rune is located: holy, ice, hellion island, disco, circle of fences and a few other layouts)