I think we learned an important lesson today.

[lifecoder]

You are right. Potions of might could be a life-saver for mage (or stabber), or an easy way to deal with unique in mealy when it is too strong and you have no other options.

[heimdall]

bailey+confuse-spell = lol

[TwilightPhoenix]

Poisonous Cloud is an awesome utility spell.

[lifecoder]

If you are cool DEFE of Vehumet with two fire enchancers and could tear anything with two shots - you MUST take care about putting some levels into Dodging or Armour. Centaur Warriors with poison arrows could take all your precious caster's health below zero in ONE turn.

[TwilightPhoenix]

That's why, despite the advice of some other players, I never turn of Armor/Dodging and Fighting. Never, ever.

[greepish]

More like just fighting Dodging is iffy past a certain point, since reflect/deflect far surpass dodging.

[TwilightPhoenix]

Not in melee range.

[Midpoint]

Lugonu's corrupt level should apparently not be used on small levels. You will find yourself surrounded wall to wall by abyss creatures (hopefully all neutral). Never been more thankful for an amulet of warding.

[Markizxd]

Lee's Rapid Deconstruction doesn't work on walls in Slime and Zot
It's great against curse skulls though

[eeviac]

doesn't matter how strong your dude is, if you're not paying attention and don't have a blink, constriction will kill him. Scroll of fear and hasted escape attempts will fail you.

[Jeremiah]

If you see a neqoxec and immediately swap your amulet for rMut, it still has time to mutate you in between you taking off one amulet and putting on rMut.

[starless]

Screen shot 2012-01-18 at 12.10.09 PM.png (12.91 KiB) Viewed 12554 times

[Stormfox]

Clearly the 5 just got mirror-flipped into a 2.

[Wereox]

Don't inner fire things that are faster than you.

[One-Eyed Jack]

Sprint is hard.

  Code:

  20 OneEyedJack the Firebug (level 1, 0/10 HPs)
             Began as a Deep Elf Fire Elementalist on Jan 19, 2012.
             Killed from afar by Ijyb (10 damage)
             ... with a wand of frost

             ... in the Dungeon (Sprint I: "Red Sonja").
             The game lasted 00:00:14 (2 turns).


Is that some sort of record?

[MyOtheHedgeFox]

Do not inner-flame things that are more interested in attacking you rather than running away.

[MyOtheHedgeFox]

Even though we have forums and IRC, sometimes it helps to try and answer a question on your own.
Many initiation ceremonies of various nations included tests where those who wanted to continue had to deal with certain troubles by themselves.

Before you ask a question here, ask yourself seven times: "What could be the answer to my situation? Maybe I already know it?"
And answer as if you are going to be paid for the correct solution.
Actually, you will be paid -- at least with real experience.

Sometimes you already know the answer -- it's just that you, just like a little baby, want somebody else to ease your pain of thinking. Do not be a wussy.

[Pteriforever]

Snake:5 -- SAFE

Swamp:5 -- NOT SAFE

[MyOtheHedgeFox]

Remember how the ninjas in cartoons always use those smoke bombs to make a stylish escape?

[runequester]

Anacondas are hardcore.. that's what my fully armoured dwarf fighter would say if he was still alive to say that. Or anything else.

[dk]

Sprint is hard.

  Code:

  20 OneEyedJack the Firebug (level 1, 0/10 HPs)
             Began as a Deep Elf Fire Elementalist on Jan 19, 2012.
             Killed from afar by Ijyb (10 damage)
             ... with a wand of frost

             ... in the Dungeon (Sprint I: "Red Sonja").
             The game lasted 00:00:14 (2 turns).


Is that some sort of record?

I don't think so
If Ijyb spawns with a wand, you are basically dead after you open the door.

[tormodpwns]

Blink frogs will kick your ass even if you're a GhFE with 85 HP, 12 unarmed skill and Sticky Flame at 14% failure, with 10/20/0 defenses.

[ASTROPRO]

Legendary Decks of Wonders contain Shuffle cards. You have 6 Int and 20ish Str and Dex. You are following Trog.

[njvack]

Legendary Decks of Wonders contain Shuffle cards. You have 6 Int and 20ish Str and Dex. You are following Trog.

While not great, this is actually not so bad (unless you wore heavy armour and lost strength).

Worse is when you have 4 Str and 26 int, and you're a Deep Elf following Sif.

[ASTROPRO]

Legendary Decks of Wonders contain Shuffle cards. You have 6 Int and 20ish Str and Dex. You are following Trog.

While not great, this is actually not so bad (unless you wore heavy armour and lost strength).

Would it have been worth dumping Trog and taking up magic? (After committing the better part of the game's spellbooks so far to the cinders?)

[Pteriforever]

There is an awesome spell capable of shredding Orc:4, Snake:5, and everything up to D:20 or so.

That spell is Summon Ugly Thing.

[tormodpwns]

A level 14 VpIE of Ash destroying everything in Orc with a great mace of crushing, 18 M&F skill, and 15/20/0 defenses with Ozocubu's Armour. A DDEE ghost will petrify you and destroy you with iron shots.

[MyOtheHedgeFox]

Let me quote TwilightPhoenix'es signature:

The best strategy most frequently overlooked by new players for surviving: not starting a fight to begin with.

[greepish]

Yup, sun tzu says it best.

[tormodpwns]

in my defense i was trying to run away the moment I saw him. Petrify is a ranged hex.

[TehDruid]

Screen shot 2012-01-18 at 12.10.09 PM.png

Was that Xom polymorph? Because it happens.

[BlackSheep]

Given the line right above the polymorph message, I'd guess he was zapping Grinder with a wand of polymorph.

[TehDruid]

Ah probably.

[eeviac]

Boring Beetles hit harder than Death Yaks.

[snow]

Hellfire will kill you regardless if you're level 27 and have lots of hp.

[cerebovssquire]

  Code:

 
 The bolt of lightning hits Pikel.
 You kill Pikel!                                                               
 With Pikel's spell broken, the former slaves thank you for their freedom.     
 Your Long Blades skill gained 2 levels and is now at level 9!                 
 You have reached level 7!                                                     
 Your scales start taking on a golden yellow colour.                           
 The bolt of lightning misses the freed slave.                                 
 The bolt of lightning hits the freed slave.                                   
 The freed slave is heavily wounded.                                           
 You feel guilty.                                                               
 "You will pay for your transgression, mortal!"

jesus christ TSO

  Code:

 Welcome back, Elynae the Yellow Draconian Fighter.                             
 The Shining One says: Being a martyr may wash away your sin!

I didn't know anything about this one either.

[Grimm]

Shields of reflection are also not great to wear while a member of the church of TSO.

[cerebovssquire]

Shields of reflection are also not great to wear

corrected

[Pteriforever]

Shields of reflection are also not great to wear

corrected

Congrats on 1337th reply to the thread.

On topic: Summon Ugly Thing is really hard to get hungerless, but the alternative, Summon Demon, is extremely dangerous. I found this out after I was forced to run from my own summons one time too many.

[tormodpwns]

Shields of reflection are also not great to wear

corrected

Shields of reflection are great. The 0.9 range buff makes them useful, notably against yaktaur packs and stone giants, who will happily kill themselves by firing missiles. And greater nagas in particular are fun to fight because you can reflect their poison arrows, thus poisoning them.

Admittedly, it's not a good idea to wear one for TSO. or Beogh. Beogh won't put you under penance but your allied warlord will turn hostile from a reflected dart.

[TwilightPhoenix]

  Code:

 
 The bolt of lightning hits Pikel.
 You kill Pikel!                                                               
 With Pikel's spell broken, the former slaves thank you for their freedom.     
 Your Long Blades skill gained 2 levels and is now at level 9!                 
 You have reached level 7!                                                     
 Your scales start taking on a golden yellow colour.                           
 The bolt of lightning misses the freed slave.                                 
 The bolt of lightning hits the freed slave.                                   
 The freed slave is heavily wounded.                                           
 You feel guilty.                                                               
 "You will pay for your transgression, mortal!"

jesus christ TSO.

Had something similar happen to me with Kirke and casting Lightning bolt with Elyvilon. Luckily, Ely's a bit easier to please. All I had to do was pull the feathers off a few arrows.

[cerebovssquire]

On topic: Summon Ugly Thing is really hard to get hungerless, but the alternative, Summon Demon, is extremely dangerous. I found this out after I was forced to run from my own summons one time too many.

...and spawns in a book with Abjuration? This is a great spell. If you spam it, you can also just retreat behind a wall of demons since most will be friendly. I usually don't even have the need to abjure.
Sun demons are much better than red ugly things, you get smiters, chaos spawns occasionally do cool things (paralysis...), ice devils are better than white ugly things, I prefer the spell overall. Of course you need to deal with the 4s but this spell offers much more than "speed 10 melee monsters with elemental damage" (not that Summon Ugly Thing is weak).

Shields of reflection are great. The 0.9 range buff makes them useful, notably against yaktaur packs and stone giants, who will happily kill themselves by firing missiles. And greater nagas in particular are fun to fight because you can reflect their poison arrows, thus poisoning them.

It's way to unreliable to be of any help; it doesn't happen significantly often. Things like resistances do not only save your life, they save it consistently. These shields are weak overall and have the same problem as stochastic rTorm: you always need to be prepared for them not working and as such, you can't pick a fight you could only win if they do reflect.
Just because they do something cool occasionally (sure, a lich oneshotting himself is a sight to see) doesn't make them good. If you have a +0 buckler of reflection and a +0 shield, wear the shield if you have the skill; ditto for a shield of reflection and a large shield if you have the skill; wear shields with or of resistance(s) over them if the base type is the same; and as you pointed out yourself watch for gods. One should only really wear them if it's a choice between that or no brand (or some crappy artefact, like the gong, of course).

Congrats on 1337th reply to the thread.

thanks, i'm so 1337 i didn't even do that consciously

[Tiber]

If your inventory's full but you just wanna make sure there's not a book of annihilation somewhere in that pile of loot, don't drop anything you can't do without, even if you plan on picking it back up. This is especially true in pan.

"I'm near starving, I should probably eat something."
"Where's all my bread rations?"
"Oh, crap."

Oh well, one of the dumbest deaths in crawl was narrowly averted, and that frantic searching was fun, I gotta admit.

[chessplaya]

Don't fight Mara in lich form with dispel undead memorized! Also, just because your "hostile illusion" looks like a lich doesn't mean that you can use dispel undead on him (you have to abjurate), and he won't go away just because the real Mara died (I still can't believe my char survived this incident).

Another thing: when fleeing from a stationary enemy (oklobs, statues), fog scrolls are your best friend.

[tormodpwns]

Fog scrolls are also useful when a TP (forced by disconnected deep water oceans) drops you in the middle of Antaeus's party, and you lose 230 HP in 2 turns.

[Jeremiah]

If you are carrying the Orb, Controlled Blink does not even do a semi-controlled blink like it would on a level where cTele is blocked, it is completely uncontrolled.

[Stormfox]

Nagas cannot kite jellies. (Yeah, Nagas can't kite much of anything for that matter.)

[Mattchew]

Do not attempt Elf:5 without a plan for dealing with summoned neqoxecs.

Vampiric weapons are awesome--I have been totally underrating them--but not so awesome against a pair of shadow dragons.

[Mankeli]

In the midgame, your DE megablaster is only two Azrael's hellfires away from YASD.