Overly specific crawl tips

[monty]

I thought it might be nice to have a thread for those little tidbits of crawl wisdom that don't warrant their own post because they come up in 1 in 100 games. Feel free to share obvious stuff for us badlpayers out there. I'll start with a few lame ones:

-Polymorph is great against maurice if you don't have SInv. Also decent against slimes and mottled dragons.
-Always kill Duvessa first.
-If you're a DD, always try item-targetted scrolls on your wand of healing, just in case it's recharging. Even if you have three of them and are certain they're ?identify.

[battaile]

Yeah, I'm surprised one of these isn't already stickied at the top of the page.

[Tiktacy]

-DD's aren't normally affected by regeneration, but trogs hand still works
-battling Nikola without rElec is basically suicide, don't ever do it.
-teleporting before being completely petrified can often safe you from an instant game over.
-never teleport in elf:3, your chance of survival is slim to none.
-branded whips often come with elec, which can be an incredibly effective weapon early on.
-pikel is very likely to be wielding a whip of elec, risking it is unwise, poly morphing or dispatching him at range is a good idea.

[Sar]

I remember I once polymorphed Maurice into a steam dragon and then... queen bee I think?
I guess polymorphed mottleds is OK if you don't want their hides.
If you kill Dowan first Duvessa goes berserk, but only once, so if you go to another floor and rest or teleport and come back, she'll be the same threat. Dowan gets some really dangerous spells though.

[monty]

If you kill Dowan first Duvessa goes berserk, but only once, so if you go to another floor and rest or teleport and come back, she'll be the same threat. Dowan gets some really dangerous spells though.

You generally need a consumable to escape berserked-Duvessa though, unless you can seperate them and then find her while you're right near a staircase.

[varsovie]

If you kill Dowan first Duvessa goes berserk, but only once, so if you go to another floor and rest or teleport and come back, she'll be the same threat. Dowan gets some really dangerous spells though.

You generally need a consumable to escape berserked-Duvessa though, unless you can seperate them and then find her while you're right near a staircase.

Why would you fight them away from a staircase in the first place unless you can already steamroll both?

[monty]

Why would you fight them away from a staircase in the first place unless you can already steamroll both?

It's occurring to me that I've probably been wrong about how Duvessa's works this whole time. I always thought her berserk started when she first comes into LOS after you kill Dowan. Disregard what I said earlier.

[XuaXua]

Yeah, I'm surprised one of these isn't already stickied at the top of the page.

ProTips!

[Grimm]

Which isn't stickied. Would people like it to be?

[pratamawirya]

- Potion of Lignification can make Sigmund-killing easier.

[Bloax]

You can avoid an orb of destruction if your god is Cheibriados by using the temporal distortion ability.

[Hirsch I]

- Potion of Lignification can make Sigmund-killing easier.

wont he just hit you from afar all the time?

[dck]

Since you can't quaff to cure confusion, sigmund has 19 damage when his scythe is plain +0, +0 and your defenses still suck against that sort of damage treeform sounds pretty awful against him.
Works for grinder I guess.

[Sar]

What, you can't quaff in treeform?

[XuaXua]

Lig got me killed because I used it on a higher level character for defense and my stats actually became much much worse than they were.

[dck]

Yeah.
Note how the potion's desc lies by omission by not mentioning that you can't quaff and just saying that "you can't retreat in any way".

[caleb]

Which isn't stickied. Would people like it to be?

Wouldn't be a bad idea

[dck]

From what I'm seeing most of those are terribly outdated, particularly things like making players think they can avoid elec weapon brand damage by flying can get people killed.

[monty]

Yeah.
Note how the potion's desc lies by omission by not mentioning that you can't quaff and just saying that "you can't retreat in any way".

Also if you try to quaff, it gives you a message along the lines of "liquid moves too slowly through your veins" implying that lig prevents poison damage, which it doesn't.

[Tiktacy]

Yeah.
Note how the potion's desc lies by omission by not mentioning that you can't quaff and just saying that "you can't retreat in any way".

Also if you try to quaff, it gives you a message along the lines of "liquid moves too slowly through your veins" implying that lig prevents poison damage, which it should.

Ftfy

[BlackSheep]

Also if you try to quaff, it gives you a message along the lines of "liquid moves too slowly through your veins" implying that lig prevents poison damage, which it doesn't.

The message is "It'd take too long for a potion to reach your roots." Tree form provides rPois, but doesn't cure or suspend poison status.

[battaile]

Which isn't stickied. Would people like it to be?

NB: I was joking, since we've already got a catch-all topic stickied.

[duvessa]

Please don't sticky any of these, they are filled with really bad and/or outdated advice. You could randomly select another thread in this subforum of similar age, and the advice within would be just as useful.

[Tiktacy]

Please don't sticky any of these, they are filled with really bad and/or outdated advice. You could randomly select another thread in this subforum of similar age, and the advice within would be just as useful.

Like what? I don't see anything out dated.

[dck]

maybe read then.

[Tiktacy]

Please don't sticky any of these, they are filled with really bad and/or outdated advice. You could randomly select another thread in this subforum of similar age, and the advice within would be just as useful.

Also, if something is out dated, it's not that hard to pm the op about fixing it. Or just do a quick reply saying "advice x is outdated, y is correct now."

Which isn't stickied. Would people like it to be?

I think having protips would be cool.

[battaile]

Or just do a quick reply saying "advice x is outdated, y is correct now."

This is less helpful in practice when dealing with these kinds of megathreads. If you see advice on page 10 of a 30 page thread, do you really want to have to comb through 20 more pages to see if it is still up to date?

If this is really something that people want in the forum, I'd suggest having a new thread stickied with each new version release to at least somewhat mitigate the deadwood.

[Siegurt]

I'd say such advice should be retained in one post at the top by someone who is willing to edit and maintain it, and suggestions on 'tips' would come in responses to the thread vetted by the community before being added by the maintainer, pruned and modified as such 'tips' become outdated or modified.

It'd probably help if such a maintainer was also a "goodplayer" and could easily recognize specifically good advice from "Something that worked for this one person this one time, so they think it's something they should always do"

That's about the only way I can see such a list of tips becoming a generally valuable resource.

[njvack]

Also, if something is out dated, it's not that hard to pm the op about fixing it. Or just do a quick reply saying "advice x is outdated, y is correct now."

Which isn't stickied. Would people like it to be?

No!

Forum threads with a million pages are even harder than wikis to keep up to date, especially when the information changes a lot. You need to read all the pages and figure out when the advice starts to apply to you. Going back to edit the old advice is totally impractical. If we want accurate, up-to-date info in a centralized place, the wiki is really the place for it.

One of the best things that can happen to advice here is that it can drift off the front page. Yes, it means people will ask the same questions over and over but it's impossible to know which info will become outdated and when.

My protip: Amulet of Resist Slowing is AWESOME for berserkers

[duvessa]

projected noise is potentially useful on late zig levels

[mikee]

there's not a lot of brilliance because i drink brilliance for food

[varsovie]

You can blacklist people on this forum by clicking their profil and making them a foe, so you don't see their post anymore.

Very useful when Grimm derail and spam russian poems.

[njvack]

Elf:7 is a lot easier if you drink the sparking fountains dry so you can get teleport control back up.

[Grimm]

No!

Excellent points. A stickied, maintained advice thread is essentially a wiki anyway, so why not just maintain that.

[MyOtheHedgeFox]

You can blacklist people on this forum by clicking their profil and making them a foe, so you don't see their post anymore.

Very useful when Grimm derail and spam russian poems.

I did not know it made you blacklist me. =(
Please excuse me. This action was aimed to adversely affect a certain forum user, not mass-bomb most. Will refrain from using this in the future.
Thank you for the pro-tip.

[Grimm]

Well he's not gonna see that is he.

[diviton]

Never read-ID scrolls while worshipping Yredelemnul.

[MyOtheHedgeFox]

Well he's not gonna see that is he.

He might, still. I do hope that counts.

[I want to believe]

Never "see if you can pick 1 or 2 off" when you spot a horde of slime creatures.

[cerebovssquire]

Never "see if you can pick 1 or 2 off" when you spot a horde of slime creatures.

I often do this

[Siegurt]

My preference is to be at least a little stealthy and "see if I can draw one or two away from the pack" then pick them off.

[Bloax]

Since slimes can't shout, this usually works out quite well unless they all spot you at once.

[cerebovssquire]

Since slimes can't shout, this usually works out quite well unless they all spot you at once.

But even if they all spot you at once, a lot of characters are strong enough to kill a couple (but not a full pack) and have the means to thereafter escape a few speed 10 melee monsters. Then you can come back fully healed and kill the rest. But yes, the strategy you describe is the easiest way if it works.

[some12fat2move]

Darts are great at waking up a single slime creature. Killing tends to make some noise so I try to lure it some distance away before killing it.

[Nordon]

If you are "risking it" with slime creatures and have an axe at hand, always fight them in the open, they merge much less often and you usually fight 2-3 large slime creatures instead of a titanic one.

Also, if you are scumming.... er I mean exploring Pand, make sure to not tab-tab-tab into a hellion island (if you see a hellion behind water it's one of those, avoid at all costs or get destroyed by hellfire).

[dck]

It's lava, not water.

[mopl]

If you plan to make an atrifact disappear of the game (ie with distortion in order not to be banned if a monster finds it), throw it in lava.
You can also throw it in deep water if you are NOT in Schoals... water will invariably change of place and allow a merfolk to find it and banish you !

[Hirsch I]

"oh, lets trow this dangerous artifact on the water... on the only place everybody can take it but me." yeah, does not seem too bright.

[Lasty]

You can get probabilistically close to identical results by taking that same dangerous object and putting it in an out-of-the-way corner. The odds of a weapon-using monster walking over that specific tile, choosing to trade their weapon for that one, and then running into you during the amount of time you will spend on that level are only a little bigger than zero.