Needler builds

[Konebred]

Can someone explain how needler builds work and how viable they are? I hear about them now and then and was curious how they worked. Race, god, spells and all that. Thanks in advance!

[mageykun]

In principle, a needler kind of works like an enchanter- your goal for dangerous things is to disable them to set up a stab. Only, instead of enscollered hibernation, you want to use a needle of paralysis, sleep or confusion. The great thing is this is pretty much the only way to inflict these status ailments on high end demons, who are immune to normal hexes (although I believe the success rate was nerfed at some point). Early game you'll rely more on poison and kiting, with curare for emergencies. Slowing needles can be used for improved kiting. And needles of frenzy charm and berserk monsters- best used on low MR followers in bands (I once got Kirke's pigs to kill her for me this way). Doesn't really work as a way to trick caster into suicidally melee-ing their allies- they resist too often.

You'll want much the same skills as stabber builds, only train throwing as high as you can. Needle success rate goes up with throwing skill.

The toughest part of this build is getting enough needles to make it work. You'll want to enchant the good brands to decrease mulch rate, and probably want to go either Okawaru or Trog for ammo gifts. They both have their ups and downs though- Oka may not give you enough needles since he also provides armor, and Trog prevents casting of useful utility spells in the dungeon (portal projectile is very useful), and when you really need defense and escape option in the endgame if you go rune lord hunting. It might be wise to start with Trog for ammo and ditch him later. Note that you can go TSO for endgame- he has no problem with stabbing so long as you stab evil things!

Part of this is theory and not experience speaking, farthest I've gotten a needle-stabber was the vestibule, where I lost interest when it was obvious I lacked sufficient ammo to deal with the endgame.

[XuaXua]

In principle, a needler kind of works like an enchanter- your goal for dangerous things is to disable them to set up a stab. Only, instead of enscollered hibernation, you want to use a needle of paralysis, sleep or confusion. The great thing is this is pretty much the only way to inflict these status ailments on high end demons, who are immune to normal hexes (although I believe the success rate was nerfed at some point). Early game you'll rely more on poison and kiting, with curare for emergencies. Slowing needles can be used for improved kiting. And needles of frenzy charm and berserk monsters- best used on low MR followers in bands (I once got Kirke's pigs to kill her for me this way). Doesn't really work as a way to trick caster into suicidally melee-ing their allies- they resist too often.

You'll want much the same skills as stabber builds, only train throwing as high as you can.

You can also use Portal Projectile, but then you're reliant on MP as a resource and the chance of locating said spell.

[cerebovssquire]

General strategy: Try to get "normal" stab in whenever you can, abusing LoS if you have to, use evocable invisibility whenever you can food-wise and against non-sInv enemies, then melee weak monsters and use needles of paralysis/sleeping/if it's all you have confusion against strong monsters.

Needles work against: living, demons, holies.
NOT against undead, unliving (golems, orbs of fire, etc.)

I would recommend a KoAs of Trog for a beginner. In my opinion, you want to get some skills for normal melee combat going, as you would on a KoBe, since you can't rely on stabs before you have needles, and these are "consumables" in that they mulch.
Once you have an antimagic quickblade you can keep it for forever. I once 12-runed one of these characters and had no problems using it in hell/pan. I oneshotted a couple pan lords with a holy dagger, sneaking up to them, and took others out with it by using my needles, which works very well.
Eventually you'll want 27 throwing for maximal success rates.
Enchant needles of paralysis and sleeping only - they are really valuable for this build while others are more a "poor man's" option.

Ultimately you want skills around this:
Stealth 27
Throwing 27
Stabbing 15
Short Blades 8
Dodging 27
Fighting 27
Shields 7
Traps&Doors 10
Evocations 10

and that's it. Priorities here are Stealth > Throwing > Dodging > Fighting for maxing them out, though of course you should have the others at reasonable levels before you do.
Evocations is very helpful since it allows evocable invisibility, +Blink and +Tele, and rods.

Wear a buckler.

This would a possible skill progression, and my personal choice:

Short blades -> 8
Dodging -> 8
Stabbing -> 8
Stealth -> 8
Dodging -> 15
Stabbing -> 15
Stealth -> 25
Fighting -> 10
Stealth -> 20
Throwing -> 15
Stealth -> 27
Throwing -> 20
Dodging -> 20
Fighting -> 15
Throwing -> 27
Dodging -> 27
Traps&Doors -> 10 (this should be pre-Zot in any case)
Fighting -> 27

Evocations whenever you find evocable invis/a good rod IF you already have the first three steps completed in case of evocable invis or IF you already have the first two steps completed in the case of a rod.

I have won two kobold needlers:

http://crawl.develz.org/morgues/0.10/El ... 124451.txt (3 runes)
http://crawl.develz.org/morgues/trunk/E ... 170357.txt (12 runes)


Checking these logs might also be of some use to you.

[evilmike]

Also two things that haven't been mentioned:

1. Blowgun enchantment (NOT needle enchantment) works like throwing skill (in that it increases the chance of needles having an effect). A +9 blowgun is a good thing to have.

2. Needles like sleep and paralysis are an HD check. Monsters with low HD are easier to hit. Surprisingly, some easy monsters have very high HD, and some hard monsters have fairly low HD (hill giant: HD 11. executioner: HD 12).

This is weird (nothing else really works like this) but it does lead to a kind of interesting playstyle.

[Konebred]

Thanks guys, sounds like a fun build to goof around with.

[tcjsavannah]

I have never gotten portal projectile to work on needles. What am I doing wrong?

[crate]

I have never gotten portal projectile to work on needles. What am I doing wrong?

Wield a blowgun first.

[Dole]

I'm interested in trying this kind of character, but I have a question: how many needles of paralysis/sleeping would you want to have before you start enchanting them?

[mageykun]

I'm interested in trying this kind of character, but I have a question: how many needles of paralysis/sleeping would you want to have before you start enchanting them?

If you're playing trunk, none. As of today, ammo enchantment is no more, and all ammo now mulches as if it were +3. So you can use them right away. Feel free to provide feedback if you try this playstyle out, I'm kind of interested to what effect these changes will have.

If you're playing stable (with ammo enchantment still in effect), I have to say I never quite figured a good balance out. There's the obvious trade off between getting more enchanted up at once and keeping the ones you have now from mulching.

[Stormfox]

Going with 0.10 stable, I'd say enchant the first batch you get. Curare needles are rare enough and mulch rapidly enough that you want to preserve what you find (especially if you've passed Sonja's spawn depth without seeing her), and other needle types are just as rare or rarer.

Ordinary poisoned needles...at least 60-70. And you'll find plenty of those between blowgunning kobolds and traps.

[sardonica]

Having messed around with this on no enchantment, +3 trunk with a KoAS, things are pretty much the same. Although Id love to see a lvl 3 charm spell that reduces mulch rate for all ammo, that would make arcane marksman cool again. But it would be far too tedious without permabuff.