smock wrote:1) I think it's because 27 UC + 15 SH is a lot of skill points.
2) Decreasing returns to Dex above 24 doesn't mean no returns.
3)I'd advocate for stealth. When I play Nagas it's usually my highest skill, up to 20 or so. I think it's even more important with Chei. FWIW, I don't commonly use Slouch. I think it's because stealth helps avoid situations where you might have to use slouch. If you have high stealth, then that scary hill giant on level 8 will dance around you and then wander off. No need to spend 16-24 piety on it.
I numbered some of your points and wanted to reply:
1) It is; but this build is focused on the late game. You can get by with around 15 UC through just about all of the midgame, and I didn't raise it over 20 until I had necromutation online. I play long games. I had incredible amounts of exp. My naga had 27 Unarmed, 27 armor (-2 apt), 23 fighting, 24 dodging (-2 apt), 15 shields, and lots of spellcasting as well: 23 spellcasting, 15 translocation, 19 necromancy, 19 transmutations, 17 summoning. For a shorter 3 rune game, you'd cut out the spell casting, but the physical skills themselves aren't too hard to raise.
Morgue file referenced:
http://crawl.develz.org/morgues/0.10/Ta ... 202132.txt I'll be adding this to the guide as a sample also.
2) True, and I did raise dex on my 5 rune win, but the cutoff is pretty severe: after 24 you get half the effect, and after 34 it cuts in half again to a quarter. My naga had 35 dex with no points assigned to it on levels, from a +4 dex randart and random level up gains. So the points you add on top will eventually be worth .25 dex.
3) Hill giants cease to be scary very early on with this build, with high fist damage and a shield to block their hits. You should be wearing heavy armor by the time they start appearing, so you'll have blocking and armor to rely on. There's almost no reason to ever slouch a single mob. Slouch should be used frequently, but used for groups.