Depths:5 more dangerous than Vaults:5?

[Jeremiah]

So, the last level of Vaults has always been significantly more dangerous than the rest, and so has acquired a fearsome reputation, but in most of my recent games that went that far I don't think it's really been any more dangerous than Depths:5, or even Depths 3-4 in some cases.

All the most dangerous monsters from V5 show up regularly in Depths: titans, gold dragons, sphinxes, liches (not sure about ancient liches) as well as all the other types of giants and dragons, plus there are hell knights, vampire knights, caustic shrikes, and in U5 a good chance of draconian annihilators.

The only thing that really marks out V5 is the risk of getting marked and the stairs getting locked, and the fact that all the stairs are together so you can't run back to V4 and come back down a distant staircase. In terms of actual monsters I find Depths at least as dangerous, and depending on the layout, possibly more dangerous.

Edit: lol at autocorrect changing liches to lichees.

[Eyesburn]

D:1 is more dangerous then Depths and V:5.

I consider V:5 to be place where everything that can go wrong will go wrong, so I take some extra preparations when entering V:5 then when entering Depths.

[crate]

It's a lot easier to stay in control of everything in depths:5. Whether you find more dangerous monsters in v:5 or depths:5 depends a lot on what vaults you get, though I think on average v:5 monsters as a whole are more dangerous.

[Lasty]

Depths:5 usually allows stair retreat from at least three points on the map and often comes with some favorable terrain. It also almost always has a significantly lower density of threats, even if some of the threats can be individually scarier. Vaults:5 has a single area with stairs, that area has the most concentrated influx of monsters, and you can become marked and have stairs sealed on you; the threat density is much higher in general and almost all the scary things that can spawn in depths:5 can spawn in V:5 as well. I would definitely say Depths:5 is easier in almost every circumstance.

[ackack]

I would discourage most people from doing V:5 as their third rune these days. Most characters are better off doing Slime or Abyss.

[damiac]

Eh, V:5 isn't that bad if you go in prepared. I haven't died there in a long time. I can't imagine how an unspoiled player could possibly survive it though, since the difficulty jump is just so much worse than the lair branch rune floors.

[xentronium]

We should probably have a default confirmation message asking if you're sure you want to go down to V5...

"You sense that this place is extremely dangerous. Are you sure that you want to go down?"

On V5...

"It's a trap!"

[dpeg]

An unspoiled player will probably die in a number of branch ends. I remember that my first attempts of Elf, Slime, Vault, Zot all lead to losses. It is true that V:$ has a difficulty spike (perhaps Zot:$ can be a match, but the latter is much more random than the former). However, our unspoiled player already knows from Orc and Elf and Lair branch ends that this will happen. So I don't think it's too bad.

re: recommendations for Abyss and Slime over Vaults: I like that a lot. In an ideal world, choice of runes would depend a lot on the character. Would be nice to see if we slowly approach that for the third rune, at least.

[damiac]

But none of those other branch ends will lock you in them when you realize just how far over your head you are. Not the biggest issue in the world, I just figured I'd point it out.

Yeah, abyss and slime are definitely worth considering for the 3rd rune, and I have done abyss first on a few characters, which seems like a good thing.

[Jeremiah]

Heh, on my latest trip to Depths 5 there was really nothing threatening at all, just a few un-classed draconians and emperor scorpions. I guess that never happens in Vaults 5…

In a related "are these places really as dangerous as they're made out to be" comment: I've had a number of recent games where Shoals 5 was significantly less dangerous than at least one level of Shoals 1-4. All the same monsters seem to be able to spawn on any Shoals level, and on Shoals 5, unless you worship Qazlal or make huge amounts of noise some other way, they tend to stay in their huts where they can be dealt with in small groups. While the other levels are much more open and they can all converge on you from all over the level.

[KoboldLord]

I do Slime or Tomb for my third Rune maybe 30% of the time these days. I still try to avoid doing Abyss, though, on account of it being Abyss. Tomb is pretty safe to do at that point as long as you have enough escape options and have some way to safely kill those revamped phoenix that got added a little while ago. Slime and Tomb really aren't too bad, and Vaults 5 is much, much nastier than it used to be.

[Jeremiah]

Yeah, I've had a game recently where I did Slime for my second rune and Tomb for the 3rd (was having real difficulty with ghost moths in Spider due to lack of see invisible.) Then I got killed by a player ghost in Zot.

I was worshipping Kiku though, which makes Tomb a lot easier - incidentally is this still the case in trunk with all the new non-mummy monsters being added to Tomb?

[KoboldLord]

Kiku characters are generically strong, and there are very few static threats in the game that aren't made easier by throwing wave after wave of zombie minions at them. The torment resistance is really only a very minor perk.

[Sprucery]

I also did Tomb for the third rune with my latest Kiku worshipper, and it was very smooth (but I'm playing 0.15). I still did V:5 too, though (and splatted on Zot:2 out of sheer stupidity). But I have to say that when I go to V:5 after doing Depths:4, Elf and Crypt my character seems to always be so strong that it doesn't feel too dangerous. But definitely more so than U:5.

Concerning Shoals:5 I also often feel that it's not so bad. The key is invisibility. It's usually easy to go from hut to hut and kill everything while invisible and wait out the contamination before going to the next hut.

[Jeremiah]

Kiku characters are generically strong, and there are very few static threats in the game that aren't made easier by throwing wave after wave of zombie minions at them. The torment resistance is really only a very minor perk.

I was actually thinking of Kiku's negation of most death curses rather than torment resistance as the most important factor in making Tomb easier. (As well as guaranteed access to Dispel Undead.)

The other thing I used to like about Kiku in extended was easy unlimited MP through using Sublimation on chunks, but that went away...

[and into]

Kiku does not guarantee access to dispel undead. (Used to, a few versions ago.)

[Jeremiah]

Both learndb and wiki think Dispel Undead is guaranteed in the second book.

Second book: One of (Animate Dead, Twisted Resurrection); one of (Agony, Excruciating Wounds); one of (Bolt of Draining, Simulacrum, Death Channel); Dispel Undead; and then one more of these possible spells that you didn't get already.

[and into]

Cool, apparently Kiku does guarantee dispel undead. Thanks!

[dynast]

The other thing I used to like about Kiku in extended was easy unlimited MP through using Sublimation on chunks, but that went away...

You can do that with makhleb now and you dont even need chunks.