Good(?) stuff you never use

[vintermann]

Title says it all. Stuff that could possibly be good, but which you for some reason don't end up using/manage to use effectively. For me the list would be

* Disc of storms
* elemental summoning objects
* Box of beasts
* Crystal balls (both good sorts)
* Ring of invisibility
* Ring of regeneration
* Scroll of torment/holy word
* Scroll of vulnerability
* Staff of energy

... and possibly some other stuff. Can anyone tell me war stories about how you used these things to great effect?

[zasvid]

I once found an early staff of energy with a non-deep elf conjurator. Bolt of Foo to the face for everyone even remotely threatening? Good times.

Another time, when I was but a newb, who haven't seen the midgame yet, I've got a ring of regeneration on a kobold. That made things significantly easier. I imagine that this particular combo - kobolds + regeneration - is great for a 3 runer.

The best war story, however, is about torment (and partially invisibility). Playing a ghoul, I chugged a potion of invisibility and went into the Elf final vault. Then I tormented the elves with a few scrolls. The elves were easy pickings after this.

[vintermann]

Absolutely awesome trick in Elf! I tried to be clever once, assembled a bunch of holy word scrolls and tried to use them to soften up a pan lord. Only after three of them did it occur to me that demonspawns are vulnerable to it... Sheer luck that I survived (and went on to die to Cerebov).

... but I thought high-end elves saw invisible?

[zasvid]

... but I thought high-end elves saw invisible?

well, it appears that they indeed do, except for blademasters and master archers. Still, disabling those two groups is good enough.

[Tiber]

The staff of energy is easy to abuse. My favorite tactic is to use it to completely flood rooms with cloud spells. The elemental summon ones can be a bit of a pain to use with the chance of being hostile, but once you've got them reliable, they're great for dealing with mummies.

[mageykun]

The disk of storms is a hilarious way to handle Beogh wrath if you trip up as a HOPr- it'll pretty much instant kill everything in the band he sends except the named leader. Otherwise, worthless.

The only elemental summoning object that was ever useful was the air elemental fan. No idea if this is still true, I haven't tried it since it got nerfed.

Box of beasts have very limited utility in maybe training evocations, or summoning something weak to use to train up your shields skill.

Crystal balls are worthless, even energy- Sif, Vehumet, the staff, or sublimation of blood are better choices. I suppose if you're a shield wearing TSO worshiper you have no better choice.

I've never used a ring of regeneration- they're too rare. By the time I find them they're not worth trading an awesome randart ring for. Rings of invs take too much hunger and evocations to be worth the very limited invisibility they give you.

I never used to use scrolls of holy word till I did the Hells. Free damage to multiple demons? Definitely worth a turn. Scrolls of torment and vulnerability are still useless though.

I used to avoid troll leather armor, till I realized how awesome they are. Barely any evasion penalty, and faster healing without sacrificing one of the much valued ring slots.

I never use bows. Slings and crossbows just seem superior in every way- I want steel, silver and/or penetrating ammo.

[galehar]

Torment can be used to soften up the V:8 welcome party.

[evilmike]

Crystal balls are worthless, even energy- Sif, Vehumet, the staff, or sublimation of blood are better choices. I suppose if you're a shield wearing TSO worshiper you have no better choice.

Crystal balls of energy are usually worthless, but they are worth using if you have high evocations skill and know how to manage the side effects. This either means being able to resist confusion/statloss/paralysis, or just being able to cope with them. Normally sublimation is a much better choice.

Probably the most use I ever got out of a crystal ball was with an ashenzari worshipper. You don't really have the luxury of sublimating chunks if your weapon is cursed, so a crystal ball becomes a good way to get some quick MP. You'll also be immune to the confusion it can cause.

I've also used it on a caster that just had very high evocations and no easy access to corpses (sublimation isn't as good when you don't have a steady supply of chunks). I believe I used it to kill cerebov by spamming casting fire storm around 30 or 40 times without much interruption (this was back when the side effects were a lot milder, though).

I've never used a ring of regeneration- they're too rare. By the time I find them they're not worth trading an awesome randart ring for.

They're actually pretty good items. There are two ways of using them: either swap to it when you decide to rest (so you take fewer turns) or wear it all the time and have a nice healing boost (good for melee characters). My mummy wore a ring of regeneration and a ring of shaolin (+8 ev) all game, even though I had other ones available (resists etc). The reason is because resists can easily be swapped to when you need them, and they aren't needed for the majority of fights. Similarly, my current character (a hill orc) is wearing a ring of regeneration and a ring of evasion, although I'll probably replace one of them with teleport control soon.

[Jeremiah]

My HEWz used 2 scrolls of Torment to weaken the Lernaean Hydra before blasting it. I lost a lot of HP myself as well, but I had previously made sure there were no other monsters nearby, and also used potions of levitation and haste to make sure it could not catch up with me and get into melee range.

[vintermann]

Yeah, I suppose if the Lernaean Hydra reaches melee range, it won't matter much whether you have 100hp or 25hp

[FilthyApe]

There are some useful items you listed there.

Rings of regeneration are good if you are playing for points, to cut down on turn count. They are also very useful if you are doing the hells as a non-caster, or a character who is forbidden to use necromancy. You can't really afford to sit around and heal at normal speed due to hell effects.

Staff of energy is mainly useful if you have a good powerful spell castable, but at high food cost. Pick it up and spam firestorms, or the like.

Rings of invisibility I've used to great effect with KoBe. Kobolds are excellent stabbers, but with Trog I can't do any casting. Invokable invisibility is an excellent tool for such a character. Going invisible lets you sneak up on and stab a lot of enemies which might otherwise be difficult. Those draconian packs in zot can't see invisible, for instance.

[Sealer]

scrolls of Torment are also very useful against The Royal Jelly

[mageykun]

I recently found a perfectly safe target to unload wands of random effects into: wandering mushrooms. You can burn charges until you get enough damage to kill them, and if they accidentally get killed healed or hasted in the process, no harm done.

[ghend]

The virtues of the ring of invisibility are really noticeable in the fedhas sprint. Oklobs won't shoot at you when invisible unless you're bashing them, and it makes sure sleeping creatures won't wake up so you can stab those sleeping bees to death like they're nothing. And things that can't see invisible can't smite you if they can't see you, I'm pretty sure.

The ring of regen is just awesome in every way, especially in lower levels. Nice to wear when monsters just won't leave you alone for very long to rest.

And the staff of energy/crystal ball combo is demonstrated in the second part of this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0Pk_13WBSs. Sure would be nice to spam fire storm every damn turn.

[sigfried von murdock]

Staff of poison gives resistance, which makes poisonous meat even more kosher than normal contaminated meat. Easy switch to eat food, and allows for a better source of clean meat.

Same as ring, but you never have to switch jewelry, and can be easily overlooked.

Spell books early game are great for burning creatures with, a book bomb kills almost anything low level.