Melee/Evocations Gargoyle Guide

[Psiweapon]

...already present in the wiki, although it's FAR from complete.

http://crawl.chaosforge.org/Psiweapon%27s_Melee/Evocations_Gargoyle_guide

Those who don't fear losing a couple of IQ points can go, check it, and start pelting me based on empirical evidence of my stupidity

A character guide comes into view!
The character guide attempts feeds on your intellect! x27
You're brainless!
You die!

[Sandman25]

The first means that whatever attacks manage to get through your defenses (not an easy task) will hurt a lot unless you have ungodly Fighting skill.

Fighting does not decrease damage.

+Earlier and more frequent weapon upgrades

Why? Is RNG more generous to fighter background? Gladiator can use 1-handed weapon too. If it describes M&F vs Staves, then it should be more clear IMHO.

-Less versatility in the early game

Why? Is it "Lack of nets" encrypted here?

-Maces and flails, branching to axes if you find cool axes.

Why? Mention other categories then also. You can find Wyrmbane or Sword of Jihad also

-Staves, branching into maces and flails if you find cool two-handed maces, or alternatively into polearms

Is it really for new players? Training a different weapon category makes players weaker unless they know what they are doing.

Then you can turn it off for a while and focus on one defensive skill or two.

Training 2 defensive skills is really bad especially for character in heavy armour or in robe.

Fighting is a must for Gr.

I stopped here, no enough time to read further.

[Sar]

Make sure to carry a good enough secondary weapon to fall back to in case you find yourself unable to wield your vampiric main in the middle of a fight.

Not the first thing that made me go "what", but you can also, like, don't switch form your "vampiric main" in the middle of a fight.

Sometimes it will SHAFT you

Not in trunk.

Get a suit of Golden Dragon Armour as soon as you can.

Uhhhh.

Golden Dragon Armour is the exception to the AC rule: it is both more common and more desirable than Crystal Plate Armour

It's not more desirable, though.

reflection is hard to find but very nice

Reflection is commonly considered to be the least desirable brand.

Anyway, this guide falls into exact same trap a bunch of other guides do: it lists a bunch of statistics, some author's preferences disguised as optimal strategy, weird barely-related things like chaos melee effects, and doesn't say anything about how you play this combo. An example of guide that does the exact opposite would be this:
http://crawl.chaosforge.org/Elynae%27s_Better_MuWz_Guide

[duvessa]

What did you intend to accomplish by writing this guide in the first place?

[pratamawirya]

CPA gives +4 more AC, and doesn't hinder spellcasting as much as GDA. rF+ and rC+ are nice, but you can get them from rings, potions, etc.

Then there are wands so good that even the game will list them in yellow text in your inventory: invisibility

I don't think invisibility wands are ever yellowed.

[Psiweapon]

Thanks for the feedback, will start addressing stuff tomorrow

don't switch form your "vampiric main" in the middle of a fight.

Why? To blast a ton of baddies at once with a rod, or to cover your retreat with shadows from a lantern of shadows, the first is more likely though.

Sometimes it will SHAFT you

Not in trunk.

Not anymore? THE DEVS BE BLESSED

Get a suit of Golden Dragon Armour as soon as you can.

Uhhhh.

Okay, there's no definition of "soon" that fits the bill.

Golden Dragon Armour is the exception to the AC rule: it is both more common and more desirable than Crystal Plate Armour

It's not more desirable, though.

Two additional non-artifact resistance pips that don't take up ring slots. Why is CPA better except for AC (stated) and corrosion resitance?

reflection is hard to find but very nice

Reflection is commonly considered to be the least desirable brand.

Why is it so, besides TSO? It makes a lot of ranged attackers kill themselves. What am I missing here? You are not given the XP, or is it something else?

Anyway, this guide falls into exact same trap a bunch of other guides do: it lists a bunch of statistics, some author's preferences disguised as optimal strategy, weird barely-related things like chaos melee effects, and doesn't say anything about how you play this combo. An example of guide that does the exact opposite would be this:
http://crawl.chaosforge.org/Elynae%27s_Better_MuWz_Guide

True, true, sorf of true, and true.. Will check that guide tomorrow. Thanks . I repeat: I never claimed my guide presents "optimal strategy" I never even claimed it presented "strategy" of any sort, for that matter.

The first means that whatever attacks manage to get through your defenses (not an easy task) will hurt a lot unless you have ungodly Fighting skill.

Fighting does not decrease damage.

No, but it increases the pool from which damage is deducted. Still, the best way to avoid such a controversy is removing the reference to fighting skill, and the rest of the sentence will hold true.

+Earlier and more frequent weapon upgrades

Why? Is RNG more generous to fighter background? Gladiator can use 1-handed weapon too. If it describes M&F vs Staves, then it should be more clear IMHO.

I'll make it more clear, then.

-Less versatility in the early game

Why? Is it "Lack of nets" encrypted here?

Yes and the throwing skill, plus Staves crosstrains both to Polearms and M&F.
I was going to reply you in a per point basis, but then I thought I got it: No, I haven't mentioned crosstraining, which is the reason behind the weapon skill suggestions.

Then you can turn it off for a while and focus on one defensive skill or two.

Training 2 defensive skills is really bad especially for character in heavy armour or in robe.

Fighting is a must for Gr.

I stopped here, no enough time to read further.

I was considering fighting a defensive skill, since it contributes to HP. Will make it explicit and stress it's importance more. I know it is a must, but I failed to convey it. Specifically, I was thinking of fighting and armor or fighting and shields.

Why is training two defensive skills so bad for characters in heavy armour or robe? How else are you going to use a shield and armor? How else are you going to use armor and fighting?

EDIT:

What did you intend to accomplish by writing this guide in the first place?

I thought that only was a requisite for proposals

Putting into an accesible place all the relevant stuff everything I learned in my last year of crawling, just in case anybody find themselves in a similar situation. Also, having fun.

CPA gives +4 more AC, and doesn't hinder spellcasting as much as GDA. rF+ and rC+ are nice, but you can get them from rings, potions, etc.

1) What spellcasting?
2) !resistance is awesome but temporary, rings can be used for other stuff, such as sustenance, regen, MR, slaying, EV, also, helps piling the resistances up.
(I've taken note of it, though)

Then there are wands so good that even the game will list them in yellow text in your inventory: invisibility

I don't think invisibility wands are ever yellowed.

I'd swear they were, but I'll make double sure.

[crate]

menu_colour += wand of invis:yellow

there now they're yellow!!

[Sar]

I never even claimed it presented "strategy" of any sort, for that matter.

That's, um, surprising, to say the least. What is the point of it then?

[KoboldLord]

Two additional non-artifact resistance pips that don't take up ring slots. Why is CPA better except for AC (stated) and corrosion resitance?

AC is better than a pip of resistance in the general case because it works on almost everything. Fire resistance only works on fire, which is relatively uncommon. Even in Gehenna, the fire-themed Hell branch, most enemies are going to be hitting you mostly with physical attacks. Furthermore, in spite of common misconception, AC works just fine against fire attacks, and unless you are dealing with a particularly large fire attack that extra 4AC might actually reduce the fire damage more than a second or third pip of fire resistance. One pip of fire or cold resistance is generally going to be good enough even when dealing with monsters that only use that element, and that's easy enough to cover with ring-swapping, so why sacrifice a defense that works against almost everything to get slightly more of a defense that is only occasionally useful?

Why is it so, besides TSO? It makes a lot of ranged attackers kill themselves. What am I missing here? You are not given the XP, or is it something else?

Reflection only kicks in when you're hit by a ranged projectile AND the shield-block triggers AND there's enough range left on the projectile for it to get all the way back to its source. This ends up not triggering very often. It's really quite funny when an enemy lich kills itself with its own Crystal Spear, but if you are already close enough for that short-range Crystal Spear to be reflected you are at most one step away anyway, and you could have just beat the thing to death. Or facing a yaktaur pack, you might reflect only one bolt per turn from the entire pack because SH doesn't work very well against multiple enemies, and one reflected bolt per turn really doesn't degrade a yaktaur pack's threat level anywhere near as fast as just walking up to them and hitting them a few times.

Training 2 defensive skills is really bad especially for character in heavy armour or in robe.

I don't see any major problem with training fighting and armour, or fighting and dodging. I could rapidly switch back and forth every time I get an extra hp or point of AC/EV, but that's boring and tedious and I play games for fun. A beginner is as likely to err by religiously focusing on one skill to a degree of monomaniacal insanity as they are to waste xp training multiple unrelated things at the same time.

[DracheReborn]

Yes and the throwing skill, plus Staves crosstrains both to Polearms and M&F.
I was going to reply you in a per point basis, but then I thought I got it: No, I haven't mentioned crosstraining, which is the reason behind the weapon skill suggestions.

M&F crosstrains with Axes and Staves though, so it's not any less versatile. I think you have too many bullet points describing the differences between Fi and Gl, which seems to imply that they're more different than they are. Gl actually are intended to be a light armour melee start, so if you're planning to play one as heavy melee, then there's no need to talk about "versatility" - especially since your guide is extremely rigid.

I mean in reality, a Fi might ditch his shield for a 2-hander if a good one drops, or a Gl might pick up a shield if an early one generates. So talking about how and when to decide between 1H and 2H might be better than how Fi should just look for the best 1H. (Sidenote: why does flail of draining deserve to be mentioned? It's not very good. At least make it a morningstar of flaming/freezing/vorpal, which is the more likely outcome for someone sticking to your guide).

Fighters start with potion of might now, so you might mention that. If I were you, I'd just focus on those important differences - starting !might, nets, and shield. You didn't say that much about shields (e.g. when to skill shields, what are they useful against, etc) and almost nothing about nets (they're "handy"? how does that help a novice).

Why is training two defensive skills so bad for characters in heavy armour or robe? How else are you going to use a shield and armor? How else are you going to use armor and fighting?

I think he means don't train both Armour & Dodging together (and Shields too for that matter). Train them one at a time.

In the latter section, you mention evokables being "your big guns". I can remember games where I don't find elemental evokers until quite late and rods never. So that's something to keep in mind. In a similar vein, you use a lot of space to describe Crazy Yiuf's staff when Crazy Yiuf isn't even guaranteed to generate in a given game, not to mention that it might be quite dangerous for a melee dude to tackle him.

[pratamawirya]

Fighters start with potion of might now

whaaaat...?

[DracheReborn]

http://s-z.org/neil/git/?p=crawl.git;a= ... f437d425fd

[Magipi]

this guide falls into exact same trap a bunch of other guides do: it lists a bunch of statistics, some author's preferences disguised as optimal strategy, weird barely-related things like chaos melee effects, and doesn't say anything about how you play this combo.

This is so true.

[Magipi]

My main problems with the guide: it will prompt beginners to
(1) choose Oka over Trog (on a spell-less character),
(2) use chaos weapons
(3) wait for a GDA (instead of using a good early plate).

Any beginner who follows this guide will be pretty much screwed.

[nago]

I'm pretty positive this is a guide a newbie shouldn't read at all, mostly for the reasons aforementioned.

I'd just comment one point I don't like:

At first focus exclusively on your weapon skill of choice until it reaches 10 levels. Then you can turn it off for a while and focus on one defensive skill or two

Why 10? It isn't a magic number.
If you need to tell a precise number, specific to reach weapon min delay or the point needed to swing the weapon at 1.0 aut - and that's a bad advice too, because it'd seem a general rule, while the best course of action is to trim the skill training depending on the specific character - e.g. if one find a +4 plate armour on D:2 and a great mace and a trog altar on D:3 it could be sensible to train only m&f to min delay. Another one couldn't find a decent weapon until orc, so it could start to train armour earlier or whatever.

A guide, if it is really needed, should give a general guideline about how playing with a melee char (e.g. positioning) because that's important to know for every character - while you can't foresee what a char will find and letting a newbie think that is better to stict to a predefined plan is a good way to screw them.

Said that, pretty much every section give bad advices: e.g. why do you strictly suggesti Oka over Trog (or even Mahkleb) if you later suggest spell less conduct? First of all you may let a newbie think a melee char can't cast (which is in most circumstances a stupid thing to do) and secondly, Oka is probably the best god among the three to hybridize (due the 5 free points of heroism).

My comment is: bring down the guide, play *more* the game, trying to understand what is really important to success in it, and maybe in future try to rewrite it. For now is only one additional deathtrap for beginners.

[Zwobot]

Also please mention magic resistance. In fact, please emphasize it. This is very important.

On the whole the guide reads like your own personal observations how you won a gargoyle. That's fine, but I woudn't try to sell it as a guideline - which implies authority.

[Psiweapon]

My main problems with the guide: it will prompt beginners to
(1) choose Oka over Trog (on a spell-less character),

Okawaru is less powerful but less risky, since the combat boosts have no drawbacks; the fail rates of his abilities tend more to stay in the same place because they use invocations; and armor gifts although not strictly *needed* can protect you better. I also state that you can use Trog instead of Okawaru with good results, but that I can't give any advice on that.

(2) use chaos weapons

I'm only recommending one weapon of chaos: crazy yiuf's staff, and that's because if CY gets generated, finding more lethal staves between your starting quarterstaff and the first lajatang you find isn't exactly easy.

(3) wait for a GDA (instead of using a good early plate).

Sorry, you jumped to a conclusion here. I NEVER said to wait for a GDA, I specifically say to wear whatever armor gives the most AC, except if a second-best has some nice magical properties (which is the exact same reason why I recommend GDA over CPA)

Any beginner who follows this guide will be pretty much screwed.

The attentive reader will find that the word "beginner" isn't stated in the title or body of the guide, it was part of mi initial intentions, but I dropped it to avoid a commitment that might not deliver.

M&F crosstrains with Axes and Staves though, so it's not any less versatile. I think you have too many bullet points describing the differences between Fi and Gl, which seems to imply that they're more different than they are. Gl actually are intended to be a light armour melee start, so if you're planning to play one as heavy melee, then there's no need to talk about "versatility" - especially since your guide is extremely rigid.

Except staves are two-handed, so you need to forget your shield for them, and you can't do so in the middle of a battle.
I will drop the versatility thing.

I mean in reality, a Fi might ditch his shield for a 2-hander if a good one drops, or a Gl might pick up a shield if an early one generates. So talking about how and when to decide between 1H and 2H might be better than how Fi should just look for the best 1H. (Sidenote: why does flail of draining deserve to be mentioned? It's not very good. At least make it a morningstar of flaming/freezing/vorpal, which is the more likely outcome for someone sticking to your guide).

The problem I see here is, if you're willing to ditch your shield, why start with a fighter? I only pick the fighter background if I want to be committed to shields in the playthrough, because I want to pile defenses on top of defenses. Being able to make the most of what the game throws at you is important, but do you really think that sticking to some sort of plan as long as it works is bad? (honest question)

Fighters start with potion of might now, so you might mention that. If I were you, I'd just focus on those important differences - starting !might, nets, and shield. You didn't say that much about shields (e.g. when to skill shields, what are they useful against, etc) and almost nothing about nets (they're "handy"? how does that help a novice).

Thanks a lot, will address those things

In the latter section, you mention evokables being "your big guns". I can remember games where I don't find elemental evokers until quite late and rods never. So that's something to keep in mind. In a similar vein, you use a lot of space to describe Crazy Yiuf's staff when Crazy Yiuf isn't even guaranteed to generate in a given game, not to mention that it might be quite dangerous for a melee dude to tackle him.

Elemental evokers are some times hard to come by, but so far I've found that you're nearly guaranteed to find a Disc of Storms before the end of the lair, or before Depths failing that. In any case, it's hard not to find some sort of powerful evokable; and rods can always be acquired (as long as you don't do spells)

I'm pretty positive this is a guide a newbie shouldn't read at all, mostly for the reasons aforementioned.

I'd just comment one point I don't like:

At first focus exclusively on your weapon skill of choice until it reaches 10 levels. Then you can turn it off for a while and focus on one defensive skill or two

Why 10? It isn't a magic number.
If you need to tell a precise number, specific to reach weapon min delay or the point needed to swing the weapon at 1.0 aut - and that's a bad advice too, because it'd seem a general rule, while the best course of action is to trim the skill training depending on the specific character - e.g. if one find a +4 plate armour on D:2 and a great mace and a trog altar on D:3 it could be sensible to train only m&f to min delay. Another one couldn't find a decent weapon until orc, so it could start to train armour earlier or whatever.

10 because it can be reasonably reached around D:7-8 and by that point it kills dudes pretty well (train killdudes skill first then skills used not to die to dudes yadda yadda) If I listed mindelay numbers, I'd find myself in another Catch 22 because of giving too much information. Also, IIRC hitting mindelay requires skills something like 14-17, and training your weapon skill that far from the start means neglecting your defensive skills.

A guide, if it is really needed, should give a general guideline about how playing with a melee char (e.g. positioning) because that's important to know for every character - while you can't foresee what a char will find and letting a newbie think that is better to stict to a predefined plan is a good way to screw them.

Since everybody is bringing the positioning point up, I'll try my best to come up with tactical tips, or link to psieye's guide.

Said that, pretty much every section give bad advices: e.g. why do you strictly suggesti Oka over Trog (or even Mahkleb) if you later suggest spell less conduct? First of all you may let a newbie think a melee char can't cast (which is in most circumstances a stupid thing to do) and secondly, Oka is probably the best god among the three to hybridize (due the 5 free points of heroism).

Other reasons to suggest Okawaru are already given above, and I do mention Trog, why no spellcasting then?
-Spellcasting requires a lot of experience points
-Spellcasting sucks with low INT and heavy armor
-Rods can be acquired if you don't spellcast and have evocations
-Evocations powers ALL evokables or makes them easier to use
=You might as well keep spellcasting out of the picture and put all those experience points in evocations.

Will mention the potential for hybridization, and detail the no casting conduct.

My comment is: bring down the guide, play *more* the game, trying to understand what is really important to success in it, and maybe in future try to rewrite it. For now is only one additional deathtrap for beginners.

This sounds good on paper but in reality would boil down to never making any guide... also, wiki formatting es un coñazo, so I'll keep editing it there.

Just for fun , here are the arguments that I'm gleaning in favour of "guide skepticism"

Newbies can't make guides; badplayers shouldn't make guides; goodplayers don't make guides.
Nobody makes guides, except possibly crazy players.

Newbies are deceived by guides, good players don't need guides. Guides are probably the reason that badplayers are bad. Everybody is better off without guides.

A guide with inaccurate or not detailed enough information is defective, a guide with accurate or detailed information is excessive. No small or big amount on information present can work in favour of a guide.

[Sar]

goodplayers don't make guides

But:
Pacra's Abyssal Knight guide
Elynae's Troll Conjurer guide
Elynae's Fire Elementalist guide
Elynae's Better MuWz Guide
and last, but not least:
http://crawl.develz.org/info/inline.php?q=hyperbolic

[KoboldLord]

The problem I see here is, if you're willing to ditch your shield, why start with a fighter? I only pick the fighter background if I want to be committed to shields in the playthrough, because I want to pile defenses on top of defenses. Being able to make the most of what the game throws at you is important, but do you really think that sticking to some sort of plan as long as it works is bad? (honest question)

You start with a fighter because you have to pick something, and it might as well be that. The shield is functional for the first few levels even without shield skill, but you shouldn't start a fighter with the idea that you are going to be married to that shield 'til death do you part. Whether you start as a fighter or a gladiator, you should glom onto the first good drop you see, because if you don't have something good you might not make it to the second thing. If you spot a good two-handed weapon early on as a fighter, you dump that old shield without a second thought. It will still be there later, if an absurdly good one-handed weapon decides to spawn for you.

[TheDefiniteArticle]

To absolutely no one's surprise, this guide is terrible for every single reason already outlined in the other thread.

Newbies are deceived by guides

If you are aware of this, why did you make no effort to avoid it?? Your guide is full of exactly the kind of stuff that will mislead uninformed beginners.

[Psiweapon]

To absolutely no one's surprise, this guide is terrible for every single reason already outlined in the other thread.

Newbies are deceived by guides

If you are aware of this, why did you make no effort to avoid it?? Your guide is full of exactly the kind of stuff that will mislead uninformed beginners.

Do you think I'm going through these two threads as some sort of masochistic sport?

I'm taking note of every single concrete point raised against it.

[DracheReborn]

Do you think I'm going through these two threads as some sort of masochistic sport?

I'm taking note of every single concrete point raised against it.

While I admire your effort, I still think it's a losing proposition :shrug:

Except staves are two-handed, so you need to forget your shield for them, and you can't do so in the middle of a battle.

KoboldLord already covered your other question, but the point is that if you start with M&F, you can switch to qstaff as readily as the other way around. Promoting shield use as a "build" is bad advice IMO, and kinda backwards. You should choose the best weapon available, within certain constraints of your skills, and if that weapon happens to be 1-handed, then and only then go for a shield.

Sorry, you jumped to a conclusion here. I NEVER said to wait for a GDA, I specifically say to wear whatever armor gives the most AC, except if a second-best has some nice magical properties (which is the exact same reason why I recommend GDA over CPA)

The point is, are you recommending people to save up EA scrolls for a future GDA? If not, then let's say you've used up all your enchant scrolls to make +10 plate, are you still recommending people to ditch that for +0 GDA when you finally get one? Note also that you'll have to invest in Str for level-ups long before you're likely to find GDA.

Elemental evokers are some times hard to come by, but so far I've found that you're nearly guaranteed to find a Disc of Storms before the end of the lair, or before Depths failing that. In any case, it's hard not to find some sort of powerful evokable; and rods can always be acquired (as long as you don't do spells)

Scrolls of acquirement aren't guaranteed either. And in any case, melee by itself is enough to win. This is the part where I guess you could explain that while melee is strong, you could branch out into stuff like evocations or ranged combat for support. But it seems to me that you're promoting a different sort of character where evokers are the main killing tool.

For specific numbers like getting 10 weapon skill, I think it would help to state that it's a rule of thumb rather than a fixed rule ("around 10 or so, at the point where you feel comfortable with your offense"). That seems to be your intent anyway.

Lastly, I'd urge you to get some Trog experience so you could see firsthand why everyone is asking why he's missing. Seriously, writing a spell-less melee guide without Trog is like... discussing fastfood joints while conspicuously ignoring McDonalds. It's the big pink elephant in the middle of the room.

[Sandman25]

To make it clear, for me Fighting is not a defensive skill, it does not make you get less damage. That's why I said it's bad to train two skills early. Armour+Dodging is bad because no-EVP armour has low base AC (Dodging is strictly better than Armour) and EVP armour makes training Dodging bad because of no EV increase for some levels of Dodging. Shields is special because you need to reach some magic number ASAP so again it does not combine well with other defensive skills.

[Abominae]

I think the biggest problem with this guide is it implies that Okawaru followers should be spell-less and prioritize for evokables regardless of anything the dungeon generated at all. It also implies that evokables and learning spells are somehow mutually exclusive, which is just not true at all. The way a lot of this information is written implies you should ignore dungeon generation in favor of strict "guidelines" that will limit a player's options.

(Well that and you have only one god choice talked about when god choices are almost as game impacting as species choice)

[Laraso]

Your guide seems to be all over the place, sometimes giving extremely specific advice that rarely applies out of a specific situation, or giving very general advice that applies to absolutely any character.

For example: "Using a sling with sling bullets to soften enemies up before engaging in melee tends to be very useful in the early game. Blowguns work wonders against all kinds of invertebrates, especially the slow ones you can kite; and curare needles (poison, slowness and breath timeout) are useful against uniques."

How does that not apply to characters of all species and backgrounds?

Also, on a side note, reflection brand is better than no brand at all! It might not be of much help, but I think it's silly fun to watch enemies kill themselves while trying to shoot me.

[TheDefiniteArticle]

Also, on a side note, reflection brand is better than no brand at all! It might not be of much help, but I think it's silly fun to watch enemies kill themselves while trying to shoot me.

For reference: If I found a +2 shield and a +0 shield of reflection, I would consider it a no-brainer to choose the +2 shield. If I had a -3 shield of fire resistance and a +3 shield of reflection, I would consider it a no-brainer to use the one with fire resistance.

[Magipi]

Also, on a side note, reflection brand is better than no brand at all! It might not be of much help, but I think it's silly fun to watch enemies kill themselves while trying to shoot me.

If I found a +2 shield and a +0 shield of reflection, I would consider it a no-brainer to choose the +2 shield. That is how bad reflection is.

Because?

[Laraso]

If I found a +2 shield and a +0 shield of reflection, I would consider it a no-brainer to choose the +2 shield. That is how bad reflection is.

Well yes, my point was that a +0 shield of reflection is better than a +0 shield of nothing, and even if it sucks as a brand it can be entertaining to use.

[TheDefiniteArticle]

Because?

Because for all practical purposes it is the SAME as having no brand at all.

Actually no brand at all is better, because you don't get TSO penance.

[Sandman25]

10 because it can be reasonably reached around D:7-8 and by that point it kills dudes pretty well (train killdudes skill first then skills used not to die to dudes yadda yadda) If I listed mindelay numbers, I'd find myself in another Catch 22 because of giving too much information. Also, IIRC hitting mindelay requires skills something like 14-17, and training your weapon skill that far from the start means neglecting your defensive skills.

Whip of electro is an exceptional weapon and requires 12 levels to reach min delay. Stopping at 10 would be a big mistake.

[DracheReborn]

For example: "Using a sling with sling bullets to soften enemies up before engaging in melee tends to be very useful in the early game. Blowguns work wonders against all kinds of invertebrates, especially the slow ones you can kite; and curare needles (poison, slowness and breath timeout) are useful against uniques."

Funny, I thought that was one of the better parts* Of course, advice that would be useful for any character would be useful for this one too. I don't see why it shouldn't be included, it's not like there's another guide with this sort of generic advice!

* Should point out that curare doesn't work against rPois enemies though. Maybe I'm just stupid, but for a long time I thought the slowness and asphyxiation part would still work on rPois enemies. And also, curare should be used on anything that gives you trouble, not only uniques. For Gr I'd use them on orc priests for instance.

[Sar]

I still would like to hear an answer about the purpose of this guide, since, apparently, it's not to present an optimal strategy or even "a strategy of any sort".

[Sandman25]

Because for all practical purposes it is the SAME as having no brand at all

This is wrong, at least for characters with ranged attacks. Compare:
1) Centaur shoots at you 2 times and gets damaged once, you kill it with a wand.
2) Centaur shoots at you 2 times, you hurt it with a wand but it is still alive and continues shooting at you.

[TheDefiniteArticle]

Because for all practical purposes it is the SAME as having no brand at all

This is wrong, at least for characters with ranged attacks. Compare:
1) Centaur shoots at you 2 times and gets damaged once, you kill it with a wand.
2) Centaur shoots at you 2 times, you hurt it with a wand but it is still alive and continues shooting at you.

This assumes that your shield successfully blocks the arrow, that the arrow successfully hits the centaur, that the arrow does enough damage to matter in any context, and that you are fighting someone using an attack which is both blockable and reflectable. And even if all those conditions are met, reflection STILL usually does nothing.

[Laraso]

And even if all those conditions are met, reflection STILL usually does nothing.

I think your definition of "nothing"
and my definition of "nothing"
are two different things

[damiac]

Yeah, TSO penance is significant in a guide for a gargoyle following oka. So, when not following TSO, you'd take unbranded over a shield of reflection, because of TSO penance?

To absolutely no one's surprise, this guide is terrible for every single reason already outlined in the other thread.

Newbies are deceived by guides

If you are aware of this, why did you make no effort to avoid it?? Your guide is full of exactly the kind of stuff that will mislead uninformed beginners.

The question is why have you made no effort to address those points in your guide. But please keep being a flippant asshole.

Yeah... he's the asshole... OK

[Psiweapon]

The question is why have you made no effort to address those points in your guide. But please keep being a flippant asshole.

Greetings and my heartfelt thanks for your calm, reasonable, and polite feedback.

I was tempted to type some swear words your way, but it's easier and more civil to report your post; and remind you that you have been the one to start flinging insults for no apparent reason.

I haven't exhaustively checked, but probably every single line of your guide needs to be rewritten if you want it to actually help someone. And while most of your guide passively or implicitly encourages players to make bad decisions, there are also some critical bits that will actively encourage players to make bad decisions if they aren't fixed:
--Literally EVERY non-Trog character should cast spells. Implying anything else in your guide is causing anyone who heeds it to handicap themselves for no reason.

The question isn't whether spells are bad or good (spells are good), the question is whether the experience needed to make them usable and useful for a character with low-to-medium int that also relies on heavy armor and is not going into extended is better invested elsewhere.

--"Get a suit of Golden Dragon Armour as soon as you can." This is one of the most common pieces of awful batshit insane advice, and I officially hate you for helping it spread. A good guide should specifically advise AGAINST gold dragon armour. Even if it was a piece of equipment that you should use (which I flatly disagree with), by the time you find it, you are far enough in the game that you already died if you were relying on getting it. The fact that you don't even mention the best armours in the game (branded robes, branded plate, mottled dragon armour) takes it totally over the top into Crazy Town.

Branded robes are out of the question since it's a guide for a character in heavy armour, branded plate is implicitly mentioned (will make it more explicit, thanks), mottled dragon armour could bear mentioning if I take medium armor into account, which maybe I should.

On the subject of GDA, you are so far failing to back with any arguments your claims of why is it such a bad item; therefore, I don't have any reasons to pay heed to anything you have said on the matter.

--"If you're going with shields, reflection is hard to find but very nice" Reflection is unquestionably the worst brand a shield can have.

Again, failure to back your claims with any sort of arguments. More on this below

Do you think I'm going through these two threads as some sort of masochistic sport?

I think you SHOULD BE. Making a product of quality is HARD. It's obvious that you're not treating this task with the seriousness that it deserves, and THAT is the reason you've been getting so much negative feedback.

Probably the reason why I am not calmly enduring all sorts of booing and decrying in order to compile a separate file which so far includes 23 specific points to be corrected, three of them credited to you.

KoboldLord already covered your other question, but the point is that if you start with M&F, you can switch to qstaff as readily as the other way around. Promoting shield use as a "build" is bad advice IMO, and kinda backwards. You should choose the best weapon available, within certain constraints of your skills, and if that weapon happens to be 1-handed, then and only then go for a shield.

Noted

The point is, are you recommending people to save up EA scrolls for a future GDA? If not, then let's say you've used up all your enchant scrolls to make +10 plate, are you still recommending people to ditch that for +0 GDA when you finally get one? Note also that you'll have to invest in Str for level-ups long before you're likely to find GDA.

In fact, so far I haven't got yet to talking about using ?enchant armor, but yes, I would overall recommend saving at least ONE for enchanting some sort of fancy pelt, for any character. About STR level ups, well, I always choose STR with that kind of character.

Scrolls of acquirement aren't guaranteed either. And in any case, melee by itself is enough to win. This is the part where I guess you could explain that while melee is strong, you could branch out into stuff like evocations or ranged combat for support. But it seems to me that you're promoting a different sort of character where evokers are the main killing tool.

Noted

For specific numbers like getting 10 weapon skill, I think it would help to state that it's a rule of thumb rather than a fixed rule ("around 10 or so, at the point where you feel comfortable with your offense"). That seems to be your intent anyway.

Noted

Lastly, I'd urge you to get some Trog experience so you could see firsthand why everyone is asking why he's missing. Seriously, writing a spell-less melee guide without Trog is like... discussing fastfood joints while conspicuously ignoring McDonalds. It's the big pink elephant in the middle of the room.

Yeah. Will do that. Thanks

Your guide seems to be all over the place, sometimes giving extremely specific advice that rarely applies out of a specific situation, or giving very general advice that applies to absolutely any character.
[sling and blowgun advice]
How does that not apply to characters of all species and backgrounds?

You are factually right, but holding this in practice means that any given guide should be useless outside the niche it's geared for, which amounts to wanting guides to be worse. I don't want to be impolite, but this is another Catch 22: If the advice is specific, it's wrong because it's of no use outside that specific situation; if it's general advice, it's wrong because it falls outside the scope of the guide.

Whip of electro is an exceptional weapon and requires 12 levels to reach min delay. Stopping at 10 would be a big mistake.

Noted

Because for all practical purposes it is the SAME as having no brand at all

This is wrong, at least for characters with ranged attacks. Compare:
1) Centaur shoots at you 2 times and gets damaged once, you kill it with a wand.
2) Centaur shoots at you 2 times, you hurt it with a wand but it is still alive and continues shooting at you.

This assumes that your shield successfully blocks the arrow, that the arrow successfully hits the centaur, that the arrow does enough damage to matter in any context, and that you are fighting someone using an attack which is both blockable and reflectable. And even if all those conditions are met, reflection STILL usually does nothing.

With decent shield skill, all those assumptions are common and frequently met facing any yaktaur pack in the Vaults, and while saying that they die in droves would be an exaggeration, their numbers thin out by themselves, to a noticeable amount. Boulder beetles can easily kill themselves.

Turning a failed enemy attack into a successful attack AGAINST THEMSELVES is advantageous in most (if not all) situations. Cold and fire resistance can be found elsewhere, poison resistance is useless to a gargoyle, negative energy resistance is less useful for a gargoyle. Reflection, AFAIK, can only be found in shields. I would only take an rC+ or rF+ shield over a reflection shield if I was actually lacking any other source of them or if I was going into a volcano, ice cave, or some other place where I *know* all the elemental resistance I could muster was going to be useful. The resistance ego (both rF+ and rC+ at the same time) is probably hands-down better than reflection, and I would probably choose a large shield over a normal shield of reflection; but besides that, I think that reflection can carry its own weight, and it EXCELS when facing packs of ranged attackers at medium distance, or when approaching them, and against enemy casters that hurl blockable conjurations (liches, ancient liches, ogre mages, naga mages, greater nagas...).

[Sar]

the question is whether the experience needed to make them usable and useful for a character with low-to-medium int that also relies on heavy armor and is not going into extended is better invested elsewhere

It probably isn't.

[tasonir]

One quick criticism is you shouldn't recommend specific items if they are extremely rare. It's okay to recommend a character go for a plate armor; you're going to find a plate armor by the end of lair in just about every game. It's not okay to recommend you go for a suit of gold dragon armor as soon as you can; that's usually not until zot or V:5. You'll almost never be able to follow that advice. Instead, just recommend using heavy armor: plate, some of the more common dragon armors: fire, ice. You can mention that GDA or CPA are great -if you find them- but don't make it seem like they're something that should spawn early every game.

The same goes for vampiric weapons. You'll probably never find one, and especially not find one of a good base type. Demon whips and eveningstars somewhat also, although demon whips are common enough if you get to the late game, they don't show up early.

Because you're likely to end up in only a plate or fire/ice dragon armor, getting some spells may be possible, so you could mention that if you do end up in light enough armor, training a few spells is okay as long as you stick with low level buffs like swiftness, regen, or possibly haste (not low level, but worth it).

[Sandman25]

BTW I think increasing Str on level-ups is wrong unless you already have something like GDA and low Str (I usually do wizmode tests to see what's better in heavy armour - Str or Dex). FWIW I believe spell-less warriors are easier to win with because you can use the heaviest armour you find.

[TheDefiniteArticle]

but yes, I would overall recommend saving at least ONE for enchanting some sort of fancy pelt, for any character

That's awful advice. A +0 dragon armour is worthless because you can just try every random plate armour and be virtually guaranteed to find a +3/4 branded one.

If you aren't saving a significant pile of enchant armour scrolls for dragon armour, there is no point in using dragon armour, since your +6 rF armour will be way better. And if you ARE saving a significant pile of scrolls for GDA, you are handicapping yourself for the entirety of the game prior to Zot.

On the subject of GDA, you are so far failing to back with any arguments your claims of why is it such a bad item

It does not exist for 90% of the game, so WHY DO I EVEN NEED AN ARGUMENT

Even if killing a golden dragon dropped an already created +10 gold dragon armour, you shouldn't spend more than a single passing remark on it because any character who is strong enough to kill a golden dragon is already strong enough to win the whole game, so improving their armour further is of only the most minor importance.

The question isn't whether spells are bad or good (spells are good), the question is whether the experience needed to make them usable and useful for a character with low-to-medium int that also relies on heavy armor and is not going into extended is better invested elsewhere.

I guess it wasn't clear enough before. LITERALLY. EVERY. Non-Trog character should cast spells. I don't mean "usually" or "it is advisable", I mean doing anything else is a self-imposed challenge run. Regeneration, Repel Missiles, Apportation, Blink, Summon Butterflies, Spectral Weapon, Animate Skeleton/Dead, plus others I'm forgetting. All these spells are easy for any character to cast, and any ONE of them will improve survivability substantially. Telling someone not to use them can only be described as harmful.

FWIW I believe spell-less warriors are easier to win with because you can use the heaviest armour you find.

Even plate wearers can very very easily have Animate Skeleton castable. "My god forbids it" is the only possible reason to pass up such a spell.

Cold and fire resistance can be found elsewhere

That's just another reason to favour those. Every single other slot that can have those resists has much more important things to worry about, and putting rF/rC in your shield slot frees your other slots up.

thinking reflection is good

I'm being totally serious when I say that, as long as you believe this, your guide will never be good, no matter how much you revise it. The reason I say this is that the protection ego (+3 AC) is easily superior to reflection, and if you don't get that, then you lack a fundamental appreciation for how combat operates/flows in Crawl and you are valuing many things incorrectly as a consequence.

when facing packs of ranged attackers

Facing packs of ranged attackers is not something you should ever do. But you don't even begin to grasp this concept, so why am I bothering

[Sandman25]

FWIW I believe spell-less warriors are easier to win with because you can use the heaviest armour you find.

Even plate wearers can very very easily have Animate Skeleton castable. "My god forbids it" is the only possible reason to pass up such a spell.

Agreed. Animate Skeleton is OP and can be used at very high failure rate

[mikee]

But:
Pacra's Abyssal Knight guide
Elynae's Troll Conjurer guide
Elynae's Fire Elementalist guide
Elynae's Better MuWz Guide
and last, but not least:
http://crawl.develz.org/info/inline.php?q=hyperbolic

Does anyone still use my tartakower guide? I post it here once and kobold lord hated it because I didn't tell anyone how to fight bees or something.

[Psiweapon]

but yes, I would overall recommend saving at least ONE for enchanting some sort of fancy pelt, for any character

That's awful advice. A +0 dragon armour is worthless because you can just try every random plate armour and be virtually guaranteed to find a +3/4 branded one.

A mottled dragon armor is useless too because it's generated as +0 and because it provides less AC than plate armor? You said that mottled dragon armor is the best armor in the game.

If you aren't saving a significant pile of enchant armour scrolls for dragon armour, there is no point in using dragon armour, since your +6 rF armour will be way better. And if you ARE saving a significant pile of scrolls for GDA, you are handicapping yourself for the entirety of the game prior to Zot.

You might use the other enchant armour scrolls on other slots rather than your main slot. You might find an artifact plate that lasts you until GDA.

On the subject of GDA, you are so far failing to back with any arguments your claims of why is it such a bad item

It does not exist for 90% of the game, so WHY DO I EVEN NEED AN ARGUMENT

You need an argument because everybody does, hello, you're not the Pope addressing his flock at Saint Peter's square.

Following this train of thought, I guess an item's worth is proportional to the percentage of game length during which it has existed, and thus the best loot you'll ever get is the 8 stones pile you found on the floor in a dungeon exit vault at D:1, and the best itemization possible for any character is the starting gear it gets.

Even if killing a golden dragon dropped an already created +10 gold dragon armour, you shouldn't spend more than a single passing remark on it because any character who is strong enough to kill a golden dragon is already strong enough to win the whole game, so improving their armour further is of only the most minor importance.

I guess killing your first golden dragon marks the point of the game in which you're badass enough to throw all your scrolls of enchant armor into a lava pit, but to be honest, I thought you didn't consider GDA an improvement to armour.

The question isn't whether spells are bad or good (spells are good), the question is whether the experience needed to make them usable and useful for a character with low-to-medium int that also relies on heavy armor and is not going into extended is better invested elsewhere.

I guess it wasn't clear enough before. LITERALLY. EVERY. Non-Trog character should cast spells. I don't mean "usually" or "it is advisable", I mean doing anything else is a self-imposed challenge run. Regeneration, Repel Missiles, Apportation, Blink, Summon Butterflies, Spectral Weapon, Animate Skeleton/Dead, plus others I'm forgetting. All these spells are easy for any character to cast, and any ONE of them will improve survivability substantially. Telling someone not to use them can only be described as harmful.

And I get bashed on because I, supposedly, act in an authoritative way

All those spells you listed are awesome support and utility spells, but getting them online with heavy armor and around 10 intelligence is sometimes too much of a hassle to be bothered with.

Sometimes I just want to acquire rods, and put spellcasting off until I have got myself 3-5 nice rods (acquired and found combined)

Other times, I just play a caster, or a hybrid. Or follow Cheibriados.

FWIW I believe spell-less warriors are easier to win with because you can use the heaviest armour you find.

Even plate wearers can very very easily have Animate Skeleton castable. "My god forbids it" is the only possible reason to pass up such a spell.

Cold and fire resistance can be found elsewhere

That's just another reason to favour those. Every single other slot that can have those resists has much more important things to worry about, and putting rF/rC in your shield slot frees your other slots up.

For some odd reason, having rF+ or rC+ in your shield is good because it frees other slots, but having rF+ and rC+ and rPois in your body slot doesn't merit even a single second of thought. Really sound and not contradicting advice here.

thinking reflection is good

I'm being totally serious when I say that, as long as you believe this, your guide will never be good, no matter how much you revise it. The reason I say this is that the protection ego (+3 AC) is easily superior to reflection, and if you don't get that, then you lack a fundamental appreciation for how combat operates/flows in Crawl and you are valuing many things incorrectly as a consequence.

Because one single defect in anything ruins it completely, in its entirety, and forever.
DISCLAIMER: The above statement is not in any way meant to imply that my guide has, or will ever have, one single defect.

when facing packs of ranged attackers

Facing packs of ranged attackers is not something you should ever do. But you don't even begin to grasp this concept, so why am I bothering

Facing any enemy in crawl is not something you should ever do, unless you have the rights tool for the job and have a clue about what you're doing, or you are unable to avoid it.

With lots of armor, a cleaving weapon, combat buffs, a shield of reflection, and hopefully a disc of storms and rElec, you can pretty much charge them if they're a short distance away.

Also note that in my original statement, I said "facing them", not "charging them", if I had a corridor with an U-turn to lure them into, or a simple corridor where I could get adjacent to one of them so the rest stop shooting at me, I'd do that. But as much as "no true warrior ever fights alone, the terrain is always his ally" is true, you don't always have the option. And guess what? Even if you have the option, while you reposition, that shield of reflection will probably make one or two of them kill themselves. And if you so happen to be wearing GDA, maybe you don't need that rC+ shield right now.

As to why are you bothering, my guess is that you have some sort of emotional need to prove yourself right and to establish intellectual superiority within a group; in spite of manners, fair debate spirit and even logic. Fortunately for you, you seem to have a good deal of culture (especially in humanities if I recall correctly) which helps attaining those goals in general, and good peer support in this environment in particular. Unfortunately for you, you seem to have a short fuse, a skewed sense of what constitutes an important issue, and utter disregard for those you consider to be below you in status. When someone actively disagrees with you, or simply refuses to take your word, fiat, as truth or the best explanation; all these factors contribute to making you lose any facade of civility and your reading comprehension, attention to detail and argumentative abilities to drop.

[KoboldLord]

Does anyone still use my tartakower guide? I post it here once and kobold lord hated it because I didn't tell anyone how to fight bees or something.

I'm still not sold on it, no. But I do have to admit that there's no bad information in it.

I'm of the opinion that species/background combos are pretty much a terrible format for a character guide. More useful are things like, "This is how you break up an orc pack" or "This is how you explore around a safe area to keep your retreat route secure", but those are hard to do in a text-only format.

[TheDefiniteArticle]

A mottled dragon armor is useless too because it's generated as +0 and because it provides less AC than plate armor? You said that mottled dragon armor is the best armor in the game.

Mottled dragon armour appears in Lair or even earlier, before you have committed more than a few EA scrolls, and has a ridiculously huge AC/EVP ratio (more AC-per-point-of-penalty than any other armour in crawl). GDA provides the worst AC/EVP ratio of any armour in crawl.

Also I don't recall ever saying it is the best armour, and if I did allow me to apologize. The best armour in the game is robes.

You need an argument because everybody does

When only 2 armours out of the entire set of possible armours in the game are mentioned in the Armour section of your guide, the burden is on YOU to justify it. When both of those armours are outrageously rare and cannot be expected to be found for 90+% of the game, assuming they generate at all, you cannot expect anyone to take you seriously without some sort of extremely compelling support.

Following this train of thought, I guess an item's worth is proportional to the percentage of game length during which it has existed,

Yes, that is exactly right!! The items laying around on D1 are extremely likely to be valuable. The items laying around on Zot:5 are almost completely useless. A branded weapon on D:2 is a game-changer that will probably increase your survival chances by something like 50%. A branded weapon on D:7 is just nice. A branded weapon on D:19 might help, but has no effect on your immediate or long-term survival. A branded weapon on Zot:4 can be entirely ignored without the slightest worry.

And yes, that also goes for starting inventory. This is why the backgrounds that start with books/gods are pretty much always miles and miles better than the backgrounds that don't.

I guess killing your first golden dragon marks the point of the game in which you're badass enough to throw all your scrolls of enchant armor into a lava pit

Killing your first golden dragon, under normal circumstances, occurs AFTER you have collected 2 runes. Possibly after you've collected all 3 runes! If you still have EA stashed away somewhere at this point, you already threw them in metaphorical lava, because you played most of the game without benefitting from them.

And I get bashed on because I, supposedly, act in an authoritative way

That's not at all what I said. When people read a guide, there is an expectation of authority. It doesn't matter whether or not you are acting authoritative, that is the perception your guide will receive. So you either need to make it VERY, unmistakably clear that you are not an authority, or you need to work damn hard to make your guide an authority. Because otherwise you can bet your life that people will take it the wrong way.

All those spells you listed are awesome support and utility spells, but getting them online with heavy armor and around 10 intelligence is sometimes too much of a hassle to be bothered with.

Lots of things that are effective are a hassle. The point of a guide is to help someone succeed, and telling someone not to use magic is blatantly harmful to that goal.

For some odd reason, having rF+ or rC+ in your shield is good because it frees other slots, but having rF+ and rC+ and rPois in your body slot doesn't merit even a single second of thought. Really sound and not contradicting advice here.

The whole point of that statement was that other slots have more important things in them. Robes/leather of rF have to compete with Mottled Dragon Armour, rings of rF have to compete with slaying/protection/wizardry. Equipping rF in your shield slot eases the burden on those other slots. GDA represents the exact opposite. You are burdening your primary armour slot with a bad AC/EV ratio (which are extremely important against every single enemy in Crawl except tormentors/hellions, who also ignore all other defenses, and also don't exist in 3 rune games) in order to get a couple resists (which are totally worthless against a large proportion of the monsters in Crawl, and even when they do work, AC/EV also work!).

I find it pretty laughable that you even mention rPois because, if you are far enough in the game to have any reasonable chance of getting GDA, then you are far enough in the game for rPois to be worthless.

Because one single defect in anything ruins it completely, in its entirety, and forever.

I was trying to say that it wasn't a single defect. It's totally different from, say, overvaluing rN. That's a simple matter of personal preference regarding some monsters etc. If you think reflection can even compete with other shield brands, you are overvaluing damage, and that's a fundamental misunderstanding of the game's mechanics. Thinking reflection to be good is not the problem; it is a symptom of a much more severe problem.

With lots of armor, a cleaving weapon, combat buffs, a shield of reflection, and hopefully a disc of storms and rElec, you can pretty much charge them if they're a short distance away.

can DOES NOT MEAN should. Why is this so hard for people to understand?

Or to be more direct and practical, reflection does not improve your defense at all. What this means is that if in a given situation you are strong enough to simply walk up to a group of ranged monsters, YOU WOULD BE ABLE TO DO THAT WITHOUT REFLECTION. Do you get it?

a skewed sense of what constitutes an important issue

Oh yes, are you going to speak down to me about what is important while you recommend using an armour that does not exist for 90% of the game, and has a reasonable chance of not existing at all? I wait with bated breath.

[Hopeless]

Does anyone still use my tartakower guide? I post it here once and kobold lord hated it because I didn't tell anyone how to fight bees or something.

I'm still not sold on it, no. But I do have to admit that there's no bad information in it.

I'm of the opinion that species/background combos are pretty much a terrible format for a character guide. More useful are things like, "This is how you break up an orc pack" or "This is how you explore around a safe area to keep your retreat route secure", but those are hard to do in a text-only format.

Even including Ascii drawn maps?

[duvessa]

Does anyone still use my tartakower guide? I post it here once and kobold lord hated it because I didn't tell anyone how to fight bees or something.

I'm still not sold on it, no. But I do have to admit that there's no bad information in it.

I'm of the opinion that species/background combos are pretty much a terrible format for a character guide. More useful are things like, "This is how you break up an orc pack" or "This is how you explore around a safe area to keep your retreat route secure", but those are hard to do in a text-only format.

Even including Ascii drawn maps?

Good luck doing that with no line breaks.

[mikee]

Even including Ascii drawn maps?

https://crawl.develz.org/tavern/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=5357&p=72097
^ one time when I actually did tell someone how to fight bees.

This was kind of discouraging however because it took a really long time to make it by hand, and the OP actually ignored it (he later posted about dying in a similar situation and how unfair it was that there was nothing he could do).

[wheals]

Good luck doing that with no line breaks.

!learn add bee_guide #.#
!learn add bee_guide #.##########
!learn add bee_guide #...@.......k
!learn add bee_guide ############