God wrath, Mega Zigs

[Phillip]

How do I expend Vehumets wrath? Can it be waited out, or am I required to miscast a certain amount?
I'm planning on making a mega-zig raiding character. As of now I don't have many resists (which is a bit of a problem) but after my first zig that should be solved. Here's the question though- I know mahkleb is the god for mega zigs, but should I switch and start working on piety now? I have 4 runes (2lair, vault, slime) and I want to know if there are any gods I should transfer to in between for benefits, or should I change to makhleb now?

(I originally planned on changing to jiyva so I could rack up good muts but I'm dumb and forgot >,<)


Im playing a demonspawn, and I have perfect mutations for a mage!
You have hooves in place of feet.
You are completely covered in rough black scales (AC +10, Dex -3).
Your flesh is cold resistant.
You are extremely robust (+30% HP).
When hurt, damage is shared between your health and your magic reserves.
You regenerate magic rapidly.
When low on magic, you restore magic in place of health.
You are immune to freezing clouds.
[You are agile. (Dex +2)
Your mind is very acute. (Int +4)
Your natural rate of healing is unusually fast.]

I'm gonna go do gehenna, and I'll see what you guys say after!

[notcluie]

>Ds going for mega zigs
>didn't scum for nightstalker

anyway, veh wrath is absolutely brutal (HD27 firestorms dropped on you constantly (iirc that's like 250 damage max)) and resists don't really help so you're pretty much screwed if you switch

[Berder]

You should not do any hells for 5th rune. Abyssal rune is the next easiest rune. After that you should do pandemonium. Hells are generally more dangerous than pandemonium, because of hell effects and the fact that you can't control teleport on the final floors of them. Gehenna is the most deadly hell; save it for your 14th rune, not your 5th. 15th rune is normally Tomb.

Keep in mind that Vehumet is just fine for the first couple zigs. To maximize your chances of doing many megazigs, I think you should:
- get Abyssal rune
- get all five Pandemonium runes, with Vehumet
- Get all four Hell runes, Gehenna last
- Maybe skip the Tomb rune for now because it's difficult and annoying. Not that you can't do it but you don't really need the xp.
- Start doing zigs until you feel like you have all the primary skills you want trained plenty high. Maybe do one or two zigs with Vehumet. Quit the zig if it gets too dangerous! There are always more zigs.
- Switch to Makhleb and farm pandemonium until you're out of Vehumet's wrath.
- Continue on with your megazigs

It would also be possible to simply start doing zigs after your fourth rune. However, you have some very desirable mutations there and I think you should play it safe.

I've written a guide: http://crawl.chaosforge.org/Mega-Zig

This is my megazig character (9 megazigs, and won): http://dobrazupa.org/morgue/Berder/morg ... 120850.txt
This is Kellhus, with 7 megazigs and still playing: http://crawl.develz.org/morgues/trunk/K ... ellhus.txt

[notcluie]

Tomb loot is legitimately good and i would probably do it before hells tbh if you know what you're doing

[XuaXua]

I saved Tomb for last once and was very disappointed that I didn't have anywhere to use all the loot. I've seen enough accounts of people achieving Tomb early, and I know I've tackled it before Hells.

[Berder]

Well, personally I find tomb a pain without necromut, considering the stat drain and rot that force you to either burn through lots of consumables or complete the game in a weakened state. With necromut and sustain abilities it's not so annoying. As for loot, it's unlikely that he'll get anything he really must have, unless there's some specific resistance or spell he's lacking and really needs. Zig loot is going to be miles better than anything in tomb. It's a matter of personal choice.

[XuaXua]

Well, personally I find tomb a pain without necromut, considering the stat drain and rot that force you to either burn through lots of consumables or complete the game in a weakened state. With necromut and sustain abilities it's not so annoying. As for loot, it's unlikely that he'll get anything he really must have, unless there's some specific resistance or spell he's lacking and really needs. Zig loot is going to be miles better than anything in tomb. It's a matter of personal choice.

I dunno. I put aside some post-Tomb consumables that I wouldn't touch till either I took Tomb or Tomb took me. 1 potion of restore abilities, 5 potions of Heal Wounds, or 10 curing potions or perhaps a wand of healing and some scrolls. and at least 1 remove curse scroll. It's not that big a deal.

[agenthree]

Phillip - if you have few resistances, you probably shouldn't be going for the hells, esp Gehenna, which is, as others have pointed out, one of the more dangerous. Have you already done the zig in the depths? If not, then if you do want more loot I'd probably do a few levels of it but don't do all of it (don't worry about losing that zig, there is an infinite amount of them in pan). Get the abyss rune, and if you have necromut (or possibly rN+++), sustab,(clarity? I cant remember if there is anything in Tombs that confuses or if anything does stuff that clar prevents), etc, try tomb very carefully. Do not leave vehu, as his wrath is very dangerous. Even if you were going to leave him for a god that gives muts, I'm not sure if I would choose Jivya - the stat shuffling can be annoying or could even completely ruin your character, and the muts constantly change and aren't necessarily reliable - I personally prefer Xom, the muts are a bit more reliable and are usually good, he also has a few nice other things like detecting enemies and gifts, and at this point you could probably deal with what he throws at you. (But remember, Vehu wrath BAD, so I wouldn't recommend switching). As notcluie mentioned, nightstalker is actually much better for zigs (cuts down on LoS, meaning less things that can see you at one time and hurt you.) If you want to do a zig/megazig, try getting things to cut down on LoS (Darkness, sources of Fog) and some better gear and XP. Also - maybe a link to the save file? Might be nice to see some more specifics on the character.

On the Tomb topic, I almost always do it as my sixth rune (sometimes earlier if I'm having trouble with another rune), but I'm usually a caster dropping firestorms and using necromut. I'm not sure if I've ever died in tomb... maybe once? Anyway, as long as your being careful I find its pretty good, and the loot is usually worth it. Sustab helps with a lot of the stat drain - and as long as you are conservative with the restore abilities potions.. Necromut is always very good cause nothing has a way to mutate you with the exception of the occasional summoned demon... so if you have necromut the rot isn't that noticeable. Though I guess its a matter of preference. And yeah zig loot is probably better - but even then the tomb loot is good so if it would be possible for him to accomplish it I'd say do it. (Though it may be better to do a few levels of the depths zig first)

[Phillip]

I dont have access to necromut, so I'm going to go kiku and get piety for a necronomicon, then dip on him

But no one answered my question.... How do you expend Vehumets Pennance? do you have to physically cast spell for it to trigger, or does it just happen randomly? the wiki is vague

[crate]

if you have few resistances, you probably shouldn't be going for the hells, esp Gehenna

To be fair Gehenna actually has very little elemental damage. It's pretty much just balrugs that you care about (or fire giants in evilmike's ending).

How do you expend Vehumets Pennance?

If you are still worshipping a god but you have penance, then gain piety (this can't be the case with Veh, but I'm saying it for completeness). If you abandoned a god and have penance, gain xp.

[XuaXua]

Well, personally I find tomb a pain without necromut, considering the stat drain and rot that force you to either burn through lots of consumables or complete the game in a weakened state. With necromut and sustain abilities it's not so annoying. As for loot, it's unlikely that he'll get anything he really must have, unless there's some specific resistance or spell he's lacking and really needs. Zig loot is going to be miles better than anything in tomb. It's a matter of personal choice.

I dunno. I put aside some post-Tomb consumables that I wouldn't touch till either I took Tomb or Tomb took me. 1 potion of restore abilities, 5 potions of Heal Wounds, or 10 curing potions or perhaps a wand of healing and some scrolls. and at least 1 remove curse scroll. It's not that big a deal.

I just did Tomb with a GaGl. It was my 5th rune (Snake, Swamp, Slime, Vaults, Tomb), and I'm now going for Pan.
I was banished to Abyss and would have taken it for Rune 3, but I left on A:2 because I wanted to kill the Elf that sent me there more than I wanted to explore Abyss.

With judicious use of Silence spell, a Spectral Weapon, and a +3 Sacred Scourge I ripped from an Angel guarding a Zig in the Depths (plus stone skin, haste, ++rN (that should have been +++rN, but I was too embedded to care), Ru-based Power Jumping, and throwing weapons), and lots of stair dancing, I took it down.

In Trunk version 0.16, Tomb felt easier than it used to, possibly because of all the newer monsters swapped out for the older set. Casting Silence, and knowing when to back off when Silence is diminishing, is key.

I only took one set of equipment, so I only needed 2 Remove Curse scrolls (because of equipment picked up that got cursed) and really only 2 restore abilities potions. Granted, I'm gargoyle, so there wasn't much in the way of Rot, but my Curing potions are 15+ and I have a Wand of Healing with 4 charges and 3 recharge scrolls.

[Berder]

Every time I see a post in this thread I hope for more discussion about megazigs.

[tasonir]

To be fair, this thread is more about preparing for a mega zig, rather than actually running a mega zig.

I like the overall concept of mega Zigs, but it seems like they are too punishing in terms of putting so many monsters in sight at once that you must take Makhleb to run one, which is disappointing. I'm not sure how to solve this without adding walls and choke points and interesting layouts to zigs, which may run counter to the "one giant room" theme that seems to be required in zigs. You'd need to be able to rest at some point during the fight with 40 pan lords, or else you have to take makhleb...

Disclaimer: I have not run a mega zig and probably won't for a good long time.

[Berder]

If you could use choke points it would be way too easy.

It seems that Kellhus stuck with Vehumet for his first 7 megazigs, and only recently changed to Makhleb, so it may be possible. However he did have "powered by death" so that obviously helped him out.