Ash and Transmuters

[barretdolph]

Is this just not worth trying? Having UC, Fighting and Spellcasting are all important for Transmuters and Ash doesn't do anything for them. But keeping up the magic side would be easy. And possible to have high UC, high ranged weapon, and good magic. Still leaves the weapon slot uncursed or worse yet with a ranged weapon.

[radinms]

Ash only gives a boost to magical skills for transmuter.
Chei gives you all stats you need. Chei is the best.

[barretdolph]

Ash only gives a boost to magical skills for transmuter.
Chei gives you all stats you need. Chei is the best.

Mostly I play DemonStabber of Ash or Demon/Naga Trans with Chei. Have tried Dis with Stabbers. Fun but not as durable. Just thinking of something different.

[mopl]

Still leaves the weapon slot uncursed or worse yet with a ranged weapon.

If you're fighting with BH or IceForm/DrafonForm, you can still curse a weapon (ie : staff of wizardry)...
But that doesn't make (imho) Ash valuable for Tm

[Bloax]

Merfolk/Minotaur transmuters of Chei are hilariously powerful.

The same can't be said for transmuters of any other god.

[Eyesburn]

Mostly I play DemonStabber of Ash or Demon/Naga Trans with Chei. Have tried Dis with Stabbers. Fun but not as durable. Just thinking of something different.

Naga assassin/stabber of Dith can be very powerfull and durable, and fun viewtopic.php?f=12&t=15720&p=214580#p214580

[jejorda2]

Still leaves the weapon slot uncursed or worse yet with a ranged weapon.

If you're fighting with BH or IceForm/DrafonForm, you can still curse a weapon (ie : staff of wizardry)...
But that doesn't make (imho) Ash valuable for Tm

I tried this under .16, and Ash didn't boost my UC the way I expected- the weapon skill was boosted instead.

I think that in .13 or .14, you could curse a halberd and get a UC boost while transformed.

The problem may have been that as a merfolk, it was just too easy to get my polearm skill higher than my unarmed, so unarmed was never my highest skill.

I think that "unarmed in forms with a cursed weapon" should be a viable choice because it means either fighting with an unskilled weapon sometimes or training two weapon skills, which are both meaningful costs compared to using bare hands with unarmed skill.

[Siegurt]

To date there has not been any way to get ash to give you a boost to your unarmed skill.

[barretdolph]

Mostly I play DemonStabber of Ash or Demon/Naga Trans with Chei. Have tried Dis with Stabbers. Fun but not as durable. Just thinking of something different.

Naga assassin/stabber of Dith can be very powerfull and durable, and fun viewtopic.php?f=12&t=15720&p=214580#p214580

Thanks...Was going to try that and forgot about it. I will give that a try. Any suggestions on magic? I would like invisibility and haste. After that I am not sure. I think will start as an assassin like you did because I like to get my SB up to around five before moving stealth higher and building up magic. The blowgun is a nice extra and can get most uniques before the temple. And res to poison makes the early game much easier. Also, I like shadow step very much. Lot of fun when it works right. Any suggestions for magic development. Last time I was high in Necro and Summons. Necro because I used pain weapons and Summons for help. But I am not that good at Summons. I like Shadow creatures if for no other reason but it makes Zigs much easier. First to give an idea of what is there and second to let me focus on monsters I need to kill first. But hexes slows down after a while. (Except for discord in Zigs and a few other times.) I guess I will mostly go to Necro again as they fit the stabber theme best. Lich form is nice and fits the theme to some extent. Just wish there was a branch of magic suitable for stabbers in Hell and Pan.

[Sar]

Naga stabbers are pretty annoying as enemies tend to move even more during invistabbing.

[bcadren]

Merfolk/Minotaur transmuters of Chei are hilariously powerful.

The same can't be said for transmuters of any other god.

TrTm of Chei is the most hilariously powerful. TrTm isn't pretty hard with any other god too (because of their horrible Int and bad magic apts).

[Sar]

who cares about Int and spell apts when you are a Troll though

[bcadren]

who cares about Int and spell apts when you are a Troll though

Mid to Late game and extended you need to either find a good Dragon armour or increase your defenses by other means. I like Transmutations on Trolls because it both fills that defense hole and increases the UC even higher and you don't care about Dragon form melding stuff; because odds are you are still in a robe when you get it. hah. MUCH more likely to get Statue or Dragon form than a top tier dragon armour before your 2nd/3rd rune...and it's a move I enjoy making.

[Bloax]

Merfolk/Minotaur transmuters of Chei are hilariously powerful.

The same can't be said for transmuters of any other god.

TrTm of Chei is the most hilariously powerful. TrTm isn't pretty hard with any other god too (because of their horrible Int and bad magic apts).

There's a very good reason I list those two races, and that's because unlike TrTm^Chei your AC/EV is going to be really damn high at all times.

[tasonir]

Merfolk/Minotaurs are less extremely broken but skill up faster and have no downsides, where trolls skill up slower, have some gaps in defenses at various points in the game, but get claws 3 and ridiculous hp and regen to make up for it. They're basically just different, trolls are still very good, but a bit more tricky.

I've been meaning to try to repeat this speedrun for a long time: http://crawl.akrasiac.org/rawdata/keyma ... 220142.txt. Haven't done it yet, though.