YAMuSu - Sif's invo or Wucad Mu?

[sanka]

I started to play with a Mummy summoner. I switched off every skill except spellcasting and summoning when I reached level 2, focusing on summoning - I never put experience in anything else. I joined Sif in the temple, and now I'm clearing the Lair. It's dead simple but still fun for me.

But now I encountered a question in this not very complex plan: I found the staff of Wucad Mu in the Lair! I play with the idea to leave Sif a little bit later and join Ashenzari. As I understand , the staff will replace Sif's chanelling nicely, and Ash will prevent confusion from using the Staff. Since it's very useful to summon *before* the fight, Ashenzari seems to be a very useful god for a summoner - no more Fire Giants behind the corner experiences.

What are you more experienced players think about this plan? Is it better to stick with Sif, or I can leave her when I got all the spells I want?

Also, if you are experienced with summoning spells - do I need anything if I can cast Summon dragon, or I can safely forgot all my other spells?
Currently I use Summon Ugly Things and Demonic Horde - with Summon Canine Familiar for invisible enemies. I'm not sure about the next step - should I learn summon hydra, or improve translocations for Malign Gateway, or start to improve necromancy to learn Haunt?

Thank you for any advice!

[JeffQyzt]

I've never found Wucad Mu, so no experience with that. Pretty sure you want to build your evocation skill a bit first before switching though. No idea how Ash's clarity plays with the staff's effects.

However, in leaving Sif you're going to experience lots of miscast effects, both from Sif's wrath (see here:)
http://crawl.develz.org/info/inline.php?q=sif+muna+wrath
...and from the fact that she's no longer protecting you from them. If your Summon Dragon isn't at Excellent, you'll need to plan to deal with that. Be aware that summoning miscasts
http://crawl.develz.org/info/inline.php?q=summoning+miscast
...include banishment, so you might want to carry around some abyss contingency kit with you.

With regards to dropping other summoning spells - for the most part, sure, but you probably still want some "cloud of cheaply summoned chaff" spell - butterflies, demon horde, etc. for emergencies in case your mana is low (remember Sif drains your mana.) I'd keep the horde for the shadow imp zombies, but there's basically nothing that your dragons can't deal with that the zombies will help with. Shadow dragons see invis, and other dragons sense invis, so invisible isn't a huge deal once you get your spellpower up to reliably get some shadow dragons. Definitely don't learn Summon Hydra if you've already got Dragons and it has a decent success rate - Dragons are *way* better for similar cost (much longer duration, flying, better defense, also mostly poison resistant). Haunt is nice due to the smite targeting though. It ties up the incoming opponents, letting you bring up the reinforcement dragon brigade (if you're hasted, sometimes they trail you a bit if you're not being careful.) Some smite targeted damage spell can be helpful too, or at least give you something to do when hanging out behind a wall of dragons. Malign Gateway is another big cannon - you've already got the biggest summoning cannon with Dragons. I wouldn't bother. Finally, if you can get some kind of cloud spell to block line of sight, and the usual buffs, you're golden.

[evilmike]

Undead races don't lose int from divination miscasts. This includes the staff of wucad mu but also orange crystal statues. So, use it as much as you want as a mummy. Consider wearing clarity, though.

[Wereox]

If you want a second summoning spell, Haunt is a sensible choice for creating emergency swarms. They can't kill things nearly as well as dragons, but can tie things up well enough, and you don't care about hunger.

You don't need to worry about wrath. You're a mummy. Just abandon sif, hang out in the temple for a while, then when she gets bored pick up Ash. Trying to run around with Sif wrath is super dangerous because all your spells get a 5% chance of a miscast with a gauranteed miscast effect and extra severity. There are like a zillion ways for this to get you killed.

[sanka]

Thank you for the advices so far!

If I can belive Henzell, Sif does not banish (if I do not cast any spell) and her wrath has no permanent effect. So it seems safe to wait out in the temple. The only thing that can get me killed is if she drains too much int - I'm not sure if she drains int from undead, if her int drain can kill me, or if a ring of sustain abilities helps.

The staff of WuCad Mu may not drain my int, but it may drain mana - I do not know if it is better or worse than Sif's invocation to regain mana (assuming high skill levels, like 27 evo or invo). Ashenzari will prevent confusion, so thats not an issue - and I will wear an amulet of clarity till I gain some piety.

If anybody knows the answers for these questions (I do not have acces to wizard mode as I can only play online now), I would be glad.

I still want some more spells from Sif tough, so I think I will not abandon her right now - but maybe a little bit later I will, just to try out something new.

[Wereox]

I think Sif can theoretically kill you with INT drain, but it's unlikely. A ring of sustain abilities makes it even more unlikely. Since you can't emergency-restore your stats as a mummy I would probably wear one. I have waited out her wrath twice, and never went to dangerously low INT, but if you have a SA ring, why not?

Wucad Mu is less good than Sif, because it's unreliable. No matter how high your Evo is, it has 1/5 chance of a divination miscast instead of restoring the mana. It will restore more mana on average per succesful use than Sif. However, as a MuSu, it really doesn't matter - you shouldn't be using Wucad Mu when you are out of mana, you should be using Wucad Mu to keep yourself at full mana with a pack of summons around, so as long as you don't get careless it works fine.

[Kate]

Undead races don't lose int from divination miscasts. This includes the staff of wucad mu but also orange crystal statues. So, use it as much as you want as a mummy. Consider wearing clarity, though.

Oops.

Wucad Mu still restores HUGE amounts of MP at high evocation skill, though, so it's pretty much always worth having around if you have a source of clarity. At 27 inv/evo, Sif restores 1-8 MP (and succeeds 100% of the time if you have more than 13 int, I think) and Wucad Mu restores something like 12-16 MP (and succeeds 75% of the time).

The actual miscasts aren't a big deal so long as you have clarity and at least one level of sustain abilities, generally. Int drain is 2-5 at worst, so only 1-2 if you have a level of sustab, and 0-1 if you have two levels. MP drain is no big deal when you can keep channeling and recover it all next turn. The issue is just the reliability, so for those emergency situations where you really definitely need MP right now then either Sif or a staff of channeling is much safer.

[sir_laser]

Sif Muna's wrath is one of the most dangerous because you're guaranteed at least a 5% miscast chance. Personally I would keep Sif and Wucad Mu, and go with Haunt + Summon Dragon - as a Mummy you get necromancy power boost @ level 13 and 26. Think of Haunt as Poison Arrow and Summon Dragon as LCS, one's more diverse/has higher range and one's more powerful.

Ashenzari is pretty amazing. His abilities renders it so that you don't have to worry about a part of the game (auto-id + auto-curse detection), although it probably would have been more helpful early on. And if you bind your jewelry slots you'd only have to train Summoning to lvl. 23.8 - his skill boost increases Summoning to 27 in that case. If you're gonna switch gods, waiting out in the temple is the best way to go, but keep in mind # of turns spent plays a large part in your final score, if that matters to you at all.