Chei tips

[starless]

What are some general tips on worshiping Chei?
I tried a Transmuter, got to Chei's 2nd or 3rd power, but got picked apart by arrows and surrounded by faster enemies.

How do you stay alive?

[joellercoaster]

I second this question.

I have had a couple of Chei worshippers get one Rune and then get munched by things happening too fast to get away from/respond to.

I think the answer in my case is "be more paranoid and play even slower", but my Chei worshippers (like all my characters really) are dying in the midgame. All advice followed with interest

[lucy_ferre]

Use spider form and blink to escape. Don't walk around in battle. Start training invocations (up to 10) at the lair. In 0.8, your melded armor still keeps its ponderousness, so you can't use spider form to escape anymore.

[chrysalis]

I have a lvl 16 Naga with Chei right now. I'm quickly realizing that getting controlled teleport and controlled blink will be vital to my survival. Right now I'm getting by with conjurations, blink and slouch mostly.

[starless]

I've been having more success than yesterday.

What seems to work for me is when I spot enemies I take a good position in a corridor or behind a corner and then shout to get their attention, so I can fight them off in one place, without having to move. In emergencies I use blink or teleport.

Seems to work so far.

[Sometimes]

Never hold a movement button down, travel in cautious taps. A lot of nasty foes are fast enough for Slouch to thoroughly mess them up. Like you've noticed, setting up camp and then bringing fights to you works wonders. In your early stages, don't wear more ponderous gear than you can get rewarded for- besides maybe an initial piece to drop you below regular movement speed and rack up piety with kills. Treat even minor foes as if you expect half a dozen Priests just out of LOS.

[Funkymoses]

This is my area of expertise since I started playing SETms with Kiku and then switched over to Chei when I realized I never used any of Kiku's powers. I never found Chei to be too onerous and have my lone win with the build and four more characters that should have won except for me n00bishly blundering necromutated characters into Angels, Shadow Fiends, etc.

This is 0.7, so things might have changed in the latest builds but
The one thing:
1. Never move towards an enemy. Let them come to you. Hide around corners. Block LOS with evaporate and water. If they are dangerous at range confuse them.

Early:

1. Immediately ponderize one thing you're wearing so that everything gives you piety.
2. Focus on dodging. You're going to get a massive DEX and dex multiplies with dodging, so robes or leather and no shield because you're a transmuter specializing in unarmed.
3. Evaporate. Evaporate will confuse and then poison virtually anything to death through the Lair/Hive/Orc branches. I do Lair/Hive first, which gives you massive piety (and the hive is trivial when you spam poison everywhere), building invocations to around ten, then skate through Orc with blade hands, Slouching any dangerous mobs. Use chei's slow effect on anything dangerous in melee like a death yak or dire elephant; the biggest problem is hydras, but wands usually take care of them.
4. Blink, and start victory dancing with it as soon as you find Dreams or Warp so you can get Plane Shift and eventually controlled blink
5. I learn Spider Form but rarely use in the dungeon because I'm usually carrying around a thousand potions for evaporate and the poor spider is overloaded. What it is excellent for is Abyss survival: change, drop enough stuff for you to be unencumbered, and enjoy a leisurely trip through the abyss. If the ponderous nerf is in 0.8 I wouldn't bother learning this at all.
6. Train up throwing and get a blowgun so you can poison confused enemies from a distance quickly. You can dump all your enchant weapon scrolls into gun/needles since you won't be using them elsewhere.
7. Get blade hands up ASAP; with +10 stats blade hands turns everything except hydras into mincemeat.

Middle:

1. Things starting with Hill Giants will start resisting evaporate's mephitic effect, which means it's time to find a source of clarity "and Alistair's.
2. I gather that Statue form is much-loathed but I think it has a niche in the mid-game for Chei transmuters. Chei followers have a real tough time finding rElec since you don't use weapons or artifact armor and can't sensibly wear storm dragon armor. You're used to being slow so you won't get cocky and you still get a +3 STR for the melee attack plus 50% HP, good AC, and synergy with stoneskin. I tried wandering through the Swamp/Pit/Vault without it after using it and felt vulnerable and naked and died. Once you have Statue Form and Stoneskin keep that up constantly as you wander through the first levels of swamp and pit, and then you can dive the vault. Ranged attackers are the most problematic but you can confuse them with Alistair's and retreat inside a room, use fog/water-evap, or just poke your head out, yell, and wait for the yaktaurs to run into your giant stone fists.
3. Vault 8, AKA "Slouch is unfair." With max piety head down, slouch the vault guards to death--almost all of them will be gone after three or four--and beat anything else senseless. Goodies from the vault should let you tackle the Elves and easy Lair runes.
4. You'll have a bunch of necromancy from distilling the entire dungeon so here's where you learn revivification, dispel undead, and regeneration.
5. Distilling every mutagenic corpse you come across will eventually see you have 60 potions of mutation, and surely at some point you'll hit an excellent combo.
6. The other earth spell of use is LRD as a useful utility spell.

Late:

Necromutation, Controlled Blink, Haunt.