Carrying the Black Torch

[joellercoaster]

After a while of hitting '!' at startup and getting various random builds, then playing them badly, I think my current like is Death Knights. For want of a better idea I'm playing Humans, which if nothing else are under-represented in the YA?P posts

So far I've been taking the Short Sword with the aim of switching to Long Blades quickly, mostly for thematic reasons (Zonguldrok or bust!), and it's been panning out OK. Also aiming for heavy armour, again mostly because I haven't done melee characters much and it seems like a good change of pace.

My best effort so far was only XL12 when he found the Sword of the Doom Knight, which I thought rather cool for his background. Unfortunately it caused him to get out of his depth in a Spider Nest and munched by Emperor Scorpions in a hurry

Next one going to be a bit more cautious. I suspect this a medium-powered build, though potentially well able to adapt to different finds that turn up (which is the point of humans) - and the God is (fairl)y useful for pretty much anyone, however things pan out.

Anyone got hints and tips they'd like to share? I like the zombies, I've figured out what Pain Mirror is for (early Ogres, Orc Warriors with big choppy things) but the whole thing is still very new to me.

[joellercoaster]

Hmm, keeping Flying Skulls alive is hard. But Rotting Hulks appear to be ahead of the general power curve, three of them are carving a swathe through Orc! I'm having to park them to avoid missing out on the XP.

[edit: famous last words: they, and the Skeletal Warrior that came next, were no match for Nessos. Fortunately they distracted and herded him long enough for me and my wand of draining. Have started running into Knights and Sorcerers in open spaces though, time to find a different branch for a bit.]

[joellercoaster]

Wow, bootstrapping Spellcasting is hard. After much struggle, getting SC to 2 and Ice Magic (hey, it's what there was) to 1 and still being useless, think I'll leave that 'til later on.

In other news, Burning Corpse vs flock of Sheep = hilarity. I think I'm going to take a detour through Arena mode...

[joellercoaster]

ZOMG Bone Dragons!

I'm in the lower Lair (Dungeon was getting hard) and I keep losing track of them - then finding the ground littered with Hydra corpses.

I'm feeling distinctly lacking in punch without my servants though. There's a Boring Unique with a glowing demon blade in Orc somewhere that might help, and Armour is gradually training up, but... I guess pure melee characters really do depend on keeping their Gods happy?

[joellercoaster]

Unexpected wrinkle: unlike a Summoner (well quite so much), you need to be really really careful not to annoy your pets. It's one thing when you have Abjuration, but I just had a near-death experience with a Giant Spore and Death Cob.

[mrbobbyg]

Do you dispel your own undead when you cast?

[joellercoaster]

You do.

But if you don't cast at all (yet), you are in trouble!

[Sometimes]

Just had a Minotaur Death Knight die in the Vaults at level 20. Xtahua is meaner than I remember...
Yredelemnul is a lot more useful than I realised. Animate Dead is incredibly handy in corpsey levels, and it's very satisfying to turn the tide against a crowd of dangerous monsters. Struggle to kill one, animate it, gang up on the second, animate... until there's one little monster staring at a tide of his former buddies.
I found myself stair-dancing a lot, dragging nasty enemies up to meet the zombified remains of the level above.

Enslave Soul-! Took Kirke for a while and wandered around Swamp turning things into hogs. Then upgraded to Frances. Woah. She'd summon legions of demons at the slightest provocation- as long as I kept her safe-ish, my enemies would be utterly buried under my undead horde and infernal summons. At one point I was fighting two stone giants, a titan and four assorted dragons all at once, in the open. They died.

I couldn't find much use for Drain Life, but I neglected to use it until quite late. It might have been handier in the early game. A pack of gnolls at a bad time or something.

[Capslocke]

Two things that I learned, playing death knights: First, ghouls are awesome pets. Second, it took me forever to learn that you could only enslave one soul at a time. I accidentally freed Frances before I realized that...

[Rapigel]

This thread inspired me to run some HuDKs. My last win was a HuPr of Zin, so doing the dark side struck a thematic chord. I have been taking short swords for the same reasons as joellercoaster, and yay, I just found Zonguldrok!

[joellercoaster]

^^ This is my envious face! Now you just have to animate all the corpses before Zong gets them Although I shouldn't really complain about this +4,+4 demon blade of draining.

Amusing discovery du jour... Recall Undead Slaves works on the shadows from a Lantern of Shadows. Neat! It's like Summon Butterflies for people who suck at magic

[joellercoaster]

Sometimes, you just can't lose for winning:

Aizul coils himself and waves his upper body at you.
You fall asleep.
Your ghoul hits Aizul with an uncursed flail!
Aizul's soul is now yours.
You wake up.

I need to reward that minion with a nice merfolk corpse or two...

PS Kraken zombies are even less useful than you would imagine. It cost me a Bone Dragon, not sure I'd take that trade again

[joellercoaster]

Enslave Soul is genuinely great!

So far the hands-down winner has been Frederick... the guy is a killing machine. I was annoyed when he put down his demon trident of distortion ("the frost giant is devoured by a tear in reality!") for an orcish battleaxe of venom, but I forgave him when he started one-shotting things with Iron Shot and IMB. That, and he happily made tons of zombies all the time, saving me the food cost - was very sad to see him go, in a vault. I am wearing his plate mail of magic resistance as a keepsake... vale Frederick, you were taken too soon.

The current incumbent is Margery, who is OK I guess if you like setting things on fire. And I do.

I think it's time to start clearing out branch ends!

[joellercoaster]

At the other end of the spectrum: Ilsuiw is a terrible slave if you want to get anything (for example, getting the rune) done in Shoals - she calls in the tide a lot, generally when you're in the middle of fighting someone else and are likely to be maximally inconvenienced.

Fortunately, walls become permafloor when you zap them with a wand of digging, otherwise I would have been in big big trouble.

I ended up enslaving an ordinary merfolk just to get rid of her

[smock]

Fortunately, walls become permafloor when you zap them with a wand of digging, otherwise I would have been in big big trouble

Good to know! Although this really sounds like cheating.

[smeej]

Running a HODK right now and it's pretty brutal. Any class that can effortlessly take out Prince Ribbet, Duvessa and Dowan all at once is OK in my book.

(Blasted Ribbet with wand of cold while my minions held off the other two, injury mirror'd Duvessa down and then drained Dowan of his stupid life.)

[Rapigel]

Finding an early amulet of faith is amazing. I got one on D1 and by D3 I had flying skulls and wights sweeping the dungeon for me. The dungeon will catch up because I am descending quickly, but so far reinforcements are coming in before they are needed.

[joellercoaster]

OK, I'm giving this another go - it's been enough time since my traumatic brain malfunction on Zot:5. That game actually went fine, but some tweaks will probably make life easier:

1) Learn how to farm kills for XP better. I was XL26 when I died but could my main skills were all under 20... I'm going to make much more use of telling my slaves to "Sit. Stay" and then using Recall Undead Slaves to only bring them in when I really want to clobber something. It has the added advantage that they generally appear in a better formation than when I've been wandering the level and suddenly run into Saint Roka.

2) Decide earlier about armour. Last time I went after platemail from the beginning, training armour and pumping STR, without understanding that it basically made spellcasting impossible, at least in a 3-rune game. I'll let the RNG decide... if I can have useable heavy armour early I'll do that, but I think a few utility spells last time would have been great. Blink, Abjuration... that kind of thing.

3) Drop Bows as soon as I can and take Crossbows

4) Maybe not pour so many XP into Invocations early on. Actually, do it a bit early when I need need things like Mirror, but then not so much (last time I was just doing it for the cool rank titles, but in the end Shields overtook it anyway *sigh*)

5) Figure out what to do with Drain Life. It was handy a few times for defeating mobs (Gnolls, Orcs) but I wonder if it becomes more generally useful with high Invocations?

Wish me luck.

[mrbobbyg]

good luck!

[Rapigel]

I'm still carrying the Black Torch!

While I've had a couple of unfortunate Zot deaths, I find this build quite straightforward to get there.

1. I'm not having XP problems, by Zot I'm level 27 and have my weapon mastered and big numbers in armour, shields and invocations, and that's even with the summons doing about 50% of the heavy lifting. I think the difference is I am eshewing magic completely (and not really building evocations either). It's suboptimal play, I know, but Yred gives me enough to think about without trying to build a spell set as well.

2. With that in mind, I'm aiming for heaviest armour I can wear, which is somewhat annoying in the beginning becuase HuDK start with 14 and need some luck to get plate mail wearable by level 9.

3. Shields means slings. Crossbows would be great, and would also mean triple swords, but I'm not comfortable giving up that third line of defense.

4. Ever since I ran out of time trying to enslave soul Frederick I build Invocations like crazy. At least until level 15 or so.

5. I use drain life like a panic button. Low on hp? Get lots of living things in LOS and a couple of drain lifes will but you back in business. I assume that the amount of hp it transfers to you gets better with high Invocations. So there's another reason.

[Un67]

I just thought of an epic combination - SpDK! Since you're a herbivore, you can resurrect every single corpse if you want to. Trying one out atm.

[LunarHarp]

Unfortunately the food costs from animating dead with yed start to add up over time. If you are a SpNe you have a bit of a rougher early game, but you can animate dead for no food cost before you do the lair.

[joellercoaster]

My second attempt came to an abrupt end in a Labyrinth (important lesson: blink is uncontrolled in Labs, and 'uncontrolled' means 'will end up on the other side of the Montaur you're trying to get away from, still adjacent'), and I've been distracted from Crawl since then by work. But, I'm following this thread at least. Go! Rouse the idle dead!

[Rapigel]

Finally got a HuDK out - it was a six rune game. I wanted to go for more, and I especially wanted to take my killer ghouls through the tomb (equip them with a platemail and a great sword of flaming... awesome... and they don't die stupidly to poison like allied orcs do). However, between slime and zot I picked up a bunch of bad mutations and I lost the will to live. I certainly didn't have the will to scum Pan looking for cure mutation potions. So I just grabbed the Orb and ran for it.

Yred is a midgame monster, but he is a bit lacking in the end compared to something like Nemelex or TSO. For a melee build that is... Amulets of Faith are mandatory too... they are a river of bone dragons.

Redacted dump:

  Code:

 Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup version 0.8.0 character file.

772748 Jac the Human Blade (level 27, 97/179 HPs)
             Began as a Human Death Knight on May 28, 2011.
             Was the Champion of Yredelemnul.
             Escaped with the Orb!
             The game lasted 08:57:40 (107998 turns).

Jac the Human Blade (Human Death Knight)          Turns: 107998, Time: 08:57:40

HP  97/179       AC 38     Str 26      Exp: 27/1107301 (3)
MP  36/36        EV  4     Int 17      God: Yredelemnul [******]
Gold 3512        SH 46     Dex 15      Spells:  0 memorised, 28 levels left

Res.Fire  : + + +   See Invis. : +    a - +7,+5 demon blade (slice)
Res.Cold  : + + .   Warding    : . .  r - +2 gold dragon armour "Mogesch" {rElec Stl
Life Prot.: + + .   Conserve   : .    T - +15 shield "Bullseye" {EV-5}
Res.Acid. : . . .   Res.Corr.  : .    y - +0 mask of the Dragon {MR Acc+2 Dam+2 SInv
Res.Poison: +       Clarity    : .    x - +3 cloak of Flash {+Lev EV+4}
Res.Elec. : +       Spirit.Shd : .    Y - +3 pair of gauntlets of War {Acc+3 Dam+3}
Sust.Abil.: + .     Stasis     : .    e - +3 pair of boots "Wiriur" {Str+4 Dex+4}
Res.Mut.  : .       Ctrl.Telep.: .    u - amulet "Skoczyut" {Faith +Blink rElec rF++
Res.Rott. : .       Levitation : .    d - ring "Crovus" {SustAb rC+ rN+}
Saprovore : . . .   Ctrl.Flight: .    s - +5 ring of protection

@: slow, extremely resistant to hostile enchantments, extremely unstealthy
A: antennae 1, berserk 2, blurry vision 1, deterioration 2, herbivore 1, -10%
hp, -10% mp, slow healing 1, slowness 1, Str -1, Int -1, Dex -2
a: Animate Dead, Recall Undead Slaves, Injury Mirror, Drain Life, Enslave Soul,
Renounce Religion, Evoke Blink, Evoke Levitation

You escaped.
You worshipped Yredelemnul.
Yredelemnul was exalted by your worship.
You were not hungry.

You visited 13 branches of the dungeon, and saw 82 of its levels.
You visited the Abyss 2 times.
You visited 1 Labyrinth.
You visited 1 bazaar.
You visited 4 portal chambers: ossuary, ice cave, spiders nest, trove.

You collected 8613 gold pieces.
You spent 5121 gold pieces at shops.

Inventory:

Hand weapons
 a - a +7,+5 demon blade of slicing (weapon)
 b - a +3,+2 sling of velocity
 c - a +2,+5 demon blade of flaming
Missiles
 n - 17 exploding +0 sling bullets
 V - 106 +4 sling bullets
Armour
 e - the +3 pair of boots "Wiriur" (worn) {Str+4 Dex+4}
   (You found it on level 8 of the Vaults)   
     
   It affects your strength (+4).
   It affects your dexterity (+4).
 r - the +2 gold dragon armour "Mogesch" (worn) {rElec Stlth++ Curse}
   (You found it on level 8 of the Vaults)   
     
   It insulates you from electricity.
   It may recurse itself.
   It makes you much more stealthy.
 x - the +3 cloak of Flash (worn) {+Lev EV+4}
   (You found it on level 24 of the Dungeon)   
     
   It affects your evasion (+4).
   It lets you levitate.
 y - the +0 mask of the Dragon (worn) {MR Acc+2 Dam+2 SInv}
   (You found it in a treasure trove)   
     
   It affects your accuracy (+2).
   It affects your damage-dealing abilities (+2).
   It increases your resistance to enchantments.
   It enhances your eyesight.
 T - the +15 shield "Bullseye" (worn) {EV-5}
   (You took it off a deep elf sorcerer on level 5 of the Elven Halls)   
     
   It affects your evasion (-5).
 Y - the +3 pair of gauntlets of War (worn) {Acc+3 Dam+3}
   (You found it in a treasure trove)   
     
   It affects your accuracy (+3).
   It affects your damage-dealing abilities (+3).
Magical devices
 f - a wand of digging (7)
 m - a wand of enslavement (8)
 w - a wand of hasting (6)
 z - a wand of disintegration (3)
 D - a wand of fireball (7)
 E - a wand of healing (2)
 G - a wand of lightning (10)
 H - a wand of disintegration (7)
 M - a wand of teleportation (8)
 N - a wand of healing (6)
 U - a wand of teleportation (5)
Comestibles
 h - a bread ration
 v - 3 chunks of hell hound flesh
 A - a chunk of megabat flesh
Scrolls
 q - 6 scrolls of teleportation
 I - 6 scrolls of recharging
Jewellery
 d - the ring "Crovus" (right hand) {SustAb rC+ rN+}
   (You found it in the Abyss)   
   
   [ring of sustain abilities]
   
   It protects you from cold.
   It protects you from negative energy.
 l - an uncursed ring of teleport control
 s - a +5 ring of protection (left hand)
 u - the amulet "Skoczyut" (around neck) {Faith +Blink rElec rF++ rN+ Int+4}
   (You found it on level 5 of the Elven Halls)   
   
   [amulet of faith]
   
   It affects your intelligence (+4).
   It greatly protects you from fire.
   It insulates you from electricity.
   It protects you from negative energy.
   It lets you blink.
 J - a +0,+3 ring of slaying
Potions
 g - a potion of magic
 k - 11 potions of healing
 o - a potion of resistance
 p - a potion of invisibility
 t - 4 potions of heal wounds
 L - 2 potions of restore abilities
 O - 3 potions of agility
Magical staves
 R - a +3 rod of warding (9/9)
   (You took it off a vampire knight on level 5 of the Crypt)
Orbs of Power
 j - the Orb of Zot
Miscellaneous
 i - a lantern of shadows

 You had 3 experience left.

   Skills:
 + Level 14 Fighting
 - Level 3 Short Blades
 + Level 25 Long Blades
 + Level 11 Slings
 + Level 14 Armour
 + Level 14 Dodging
 + Level 6 Stealth
 + Level 7 Stabbing
 + Level 18 Shields
 + Level 3 Traps & Doors
 - Level 1 Unarmed Combat
 - Level 1 Spellcasting
 + Level 19 Invocations
 + Level 7 Evocations

You had 28 spell levels left.
You didn't know any spells.

Dungeon Overview and Level Annotations

Branches:
Dungeon (27/27)            Temple (0/1) D:5             Orc (4/4) D:10
    Elf (5/5) Orc:3          Lair (8/8) D:12          Swamp (5/5) Lair:5
  Slime (6/6) Lair:8        Snake (5/5) Lair:3         Hive (2/2) D:15
  Vault (8/8) D:18          Blade (1/1) Vault:6       Crypt (5/5) Vault:3
   Tomb (0/3) Crypt:2         Zot (5/5) D:27       
   Dis: Hell:1         Geh: Hell:1         Coc: Hell:1         Tar: Hell:1

Shops:
D:6: !/+/  D:7: [  D:22: [  D:27: =  Orc:2: +  Orc:3: %  Orc:4: %*[[
Elf:3: *  Elf:4: [*?  Vault:5: (

                    Innate Abilities, Weirdness & Mutations

You have a pair of small antennae on your head.
You often lose your temper in combat.
Your vision is a little blurry.
You are clumsy (Dex -2).
Your body is deteriorating.
You are dopey (Int -1).
You digest meat inefficiently.
You are frail (-10% HP).
Your magical capacity is low (-10% MP).
You heal slowly.
You are weak (Str -1).
You cover ground slowly.


[Sjohara]

I've been experimenting with Death Knights recently (mostly Mountain Dwarves), but without much luck. I've always thought Yredelemnul was a ton of fun, but he doesn't mesh too well with the casters I typically play due to the high mana cost of Drain Life, so the idea of a character based entirely on Yredelemnul has a lot of appeal. I just haven't been able to make it work too well yet. I feel like I'm running into two main issues.

One is that minions just aren't consistent. They're a great bonus when they're around, but between zombies not following you between levels and gifted minions not being replaced immediately upon their deaths (especially if you have a bunch of them stacked up), there are many, many times when you need them but don't have them. So relying on an undead horde for basic survival doesn't really pan out very well.

The other is that there just isn't enough piety in the world to keep me going. Early on you need to be using Pain Mirror all the time due to the extreme lousiness of goblin and orc zombies, which costs a lot of piety. And since you need to invoke it before you're sure you'll need it for it to be worth anything at all, sometimes you even need to waste some piety on it just to be safe. I spend a long time bouncing between * and ** due to the cost of Pain Mirror alone, unable to reach the higher tiers. Once I get a weapon strong enough to carry me to ****, the exact same thing starts happening with Drain Life. It's great and you want/need to use it all the time and you struggle to so much as break even on piety. It's not that big of a deal for someone with magic, because they can use spells to get out of most situations and save the piety for real emergencies, but for a true Death Knight you can't help but go through piety like water and it seems to stunt my development. I'm almost tempted to start with a caster and then take Yredelemnul later, but that kind of defeats the point, especially since I'd like to try out a heavy armor character for once. Maybe if it was a weaker one like a Warper or something...

One other problem I've had in the past (though not as an actual Death Knight, as I've never made it far enough) is that I don't really know how to use Enslave Soul. What's the optimal technique? Usually when I try to cast it on a unique it wears off long before I've managed to grind down their health even if they aren't a major threat. I don't think I've ever once managed to get an intact spectre. Is there a secret to it? Should I start by enslaving an only moderately strong monster and use its damage to help secure a replacement? That's one thing I don't think I ever tried...I think I convince myself that the piety cost is higher than it really is and don't want to waste it.

[Sometimes]

Usually when I try to cast it on a unique it wears off

Are your Invocations up to scratch? I never had trouble with Enslave wearing off midfight, but I victory-danced the hell out of Invo before I started using it.

[Sjohara]

Well, these were all older characters, so I can't really check. But I'd estimate it was usually somewhere between 10 and 13 that I'd see everything was at Excellent and turn it off in favor of training magic schools. I guess on a Death Knight it'd probably be higher.

[Sometimes]

I wouldn't have thought you'd need more than about 15. You might need to bust out all the stops against a particularly desirable Slave to kill them in the time limit- someone like Frances is certainly worth a potion of might and a few wand charges.

[dassem]

In answer to Sjohara's early-game dilemas:
I have a really promising DSDK who has just looted an ice cave and a volcano.
As a DS, training invocations was easy, so enslave soul is useful, although my problem is remembering to use it before my minions hurt things too badly.
I went more of the heavy-armor route early, so I'm now trying to bootstrap spellcasting.
I found lots of needles and a venom dagger, so poisoning, then fleeing as my minions finish things seems to work well.

The tricks seem to be:
Even weak zombies can provide easy escape routes and little bits of damage - so once you have a few, fight in the open, not corridors, surround things and nibble them to death.
As zombies stay on level, create a big pack, go down, then escape upwards, laughing as enemies follow you into the ambush.
If that doesn't work consider killing something and taking its corpse with you to the next level, or trying different downstairs to build up a bit of a pack (then see above).
I used animate corpse and recall constantly but the more expensive abilities much more sparingly. I've only used them about once each - it turns out that spiny worms can dissolve quite a few zombies very quickly.

[joellercoaster]

Right.

Pain Mirror is a last resort - use it against the occasional unaviodable early Ogre or Ice Beast, but try to keep your piety on the up rather than spending it.

Undead minions are a statistical thing - until Rotting Hulks, they will help keep enemies on the back foot rather than dominate anything, so the idea is that they make you a little stronger, rather than win you fights outright - you still have to choose your battles and start them in the right places.

Zombies are excellent, though not necessarily as an offensive weapon. They're not really there to kill things for you, but you can swap places with them at will and *poof* - you're not fighting that Orc Knight any more, and can head for the upstairs unmolested. They're great for the same reason that Blink is great, rather than IMB.

As for Enslave Soul... it's simply not that useful in the earlier part of the game. And especially, not in against enemies you have to grind down. It's more of a weapon of opportunity, turning a lucky find (say, Aizul asleep without any friends around) into a powerful bonus for later. That touch-and-go, maybe-you-can-take it, encounter with Rupert in Lair:2 is probably not the right time to be worrying about Enslaving him.

[Bim]

Heartily agree with Joller, Especially on enslaving souls/animate.

I often play as a necromancer, and as such kept playing like one (using zombies as a main force and spamming pain mirror) where as really you need to play like a fighter with a few minions/occasional pain mirror, until you can enslave nasty, nasty things.

I would say as the time issue, just absolutely hammer them with everything you've got. If you can get Aizul or Fred on your side, it doesn't really matter if you've used all your might/speed potions and whatever as you'll still be much better off. I would however say that I victory danced invo. after most big kills, so its possibly worth doing that.

[dassem]

Thanks to this thread, I am still waking the idle dead!
A spectral Rupert with a great sword of electrocution does a good job of clearing out the shoals.
The six bone dragons that Kiku sent are also quite effective.

I've been playing mostly melee, but I'm now wondering whether to switch to magic more... Does a DSDK need spells in the late game? (I suppose I should do a CIP post this evening, as I've got several questions!)

[joellercoaster]

You can definitely do the endgame without magic - the deciding question is, are you invested in heavy armour or not? Spellcasting in Crystal Plate is pointless, but some kinds of Dragon Armour might make it worthwhile grinding up Blink or Swiftness and friends. My last spell-less HuDK died on Zot:5 out of stupidity, not any particular need to suddenly cast a spell

I'd hate to try any of the postgame stuff without magic though (having said that, I'm sure someone has a 15-runer with an OgBe who worshipped Trog all the way through or something - I'm just not that guy).

[cybersaint2k]

I just lost an interesting Kobold carrying the black torch. Level 14, but low hit points and low AC made him easy pickings for a hand-axe throwing Warlord. Two right between the eyes.

Having a race that can eat anything he doesn't resurrect made all the strengths of the Yre jump out at you. But the lack of HP was a problem.

[joellercoaster]

Have picked up DKs again (once more through random character selection), current incumbent is a Demonspawn.

The enslaved soul of Margery is busting heads and taking names again - her scalps this time include Frederick and a Kraken on the same level! This time I'll remember to just kill Isuiw normally

This time I'm going to do a few things differently... in particular I'm remembering that Pain Mirror exists in the later game (by the way, can you get in a Pain Mirror loop with Deep Dwarves in the Abyss? I'd hate to find out the hard way), training Invocations more and trying to use Drain Life, which I don't think I ever did last time.

[Hydro]

I don't use death knights much, but I love Yred.

I hoard(/horde) my stair-climbing minions, including enslaved souls. One or two at a time they just die off to attrition, but in mobs of eight or ten they make a pretty sweet posse, and will crush whatever it is that you really need them for. Plus, screw that skeleton knight that keeps raising my dinner while I'm trying to butcher it. I don't want to hang out with that guy any longer than I have to.

And, yea, I do a ton of stair-dancing. I try to raise zombies on every other floor; i.e, if I have a good mob going on d4, I won't really bother with one on D5. I'll just lure everything upstairs, and any leftover corpses get hauled down to give me a head start on D6. There are lots of reasons not to (you're hungry; luring enemies and hauling corpses takes too long; your D4 mob got wiped out; D5 is too dangerous to go into without backup; etc, etc), but as a rule the less thinly your forces are spread the better.

[ldierk]

This thread inspired me to try a Dk and gave Sp a shot. They work quite good, as they have an easy time with stabbing in the beginning and can bootstrap magic with ease.
viewtopic.php?f=12&t=3447

[Konebred]

I had a Draconian DK that found a book with airstrike in it. Smite targeting behind the meatshield was pretty successful. It allowed me to kill all the things my minions were damaging. Super useful in mid game when a lot of things run after being damaged.