Sandman25 wrote:linear wrote:I apologize if you think this is mean, but it blows my mind that anyone would fail at something 500 times for fun. I think your focus should be on getting tactical advice and improving rather than new combos.
To be clear, I thanked for this mostly.
Yeah, I'll take that as you meant it, no offence meant => none taken. I shall now divert from my prepared remarks to explain why the fuck I have 500 dead Mu...
I dont play (have never played) offline, I started out playing Minotaurs until I won one (which happened in a reasonable time-frame). At that point I decided that the best way to learn crawl was to play the worst species. Barring a few oddballs with gimmicks (fe/op) I considered Mummy to be the worst and so I taught myself crawl by running (and splatting) those. Probably 450 of my 500 mummies lie in-between my first and second win (as seen in my sig). Hopefully (as also seen in my sig) I've become a somewhat better player since then. I wouldnt say I was particularly good at crawl, but i'm not as bad as it might seem. What I am is impatient and lazy, I know what the optimal courses are, even before I then do something else because I want it to happen with fewer key presses. This translates to a lot of early-D tabbing, which sometimes translates to kersplats where you just barrel into orc priest/wiz packs or whatever because your'e not paying attention and have already been crawling 8 hours straight.
Long story short, yes killing that many mummies was a little dull, but I learned through the process and I think I can confidently say I've improved significantly since then. A couple of them died in extended, since I was still after a 15-rune win at that time.
I let this thread run a bit before answering, wanted a reasonable spectrum of answers and was waiting for a few names I've come to respect to chime in.
First of all, many thanks for taking this seriously and giving motivation with your answers, which increases their value significantly.
Some specific feedback: Ghoul I was pleased to see people recommending Mo for, I ran a few of these with moderate success, Makh/Oka mainly, though since my recent TeMo^Chei I'll probably be adding him into the rotation since that was brutal damage output. (See, I've gone from a guy who splats 500 Mu to a guy who seriously entertains the thought of ^Chei). I probably wouldnt have thought of running kiku on a ghoul, but its not more wasteful than 'makh just for heals'. Maybe...but Oka is so baller on UC.
IE - yeah, its powerful and will always be in the backpocket for hard-starting species. I traditionally suck with IE however, have only once or twice got icicle online. Did some DgIE, will probably keep running that combo unless something else leaps out at me.
Human - Big thanks dowan! Chaos Knight made this much more fun. I've not done Xom before and probably wouldnt seriously consider him for other combos as I'm not so good that I want a harder run...but it really made playing Hu flavourful, I made XL10 with HuCK last night before Xom got bored and hotdropped high-tier demons on me in a corridor. I went to ?tele but he had got me with blurry vision some time before and I didnt make it. Was a blast though, will likely run again since a part of me wants a CK win.
Naga - Mix of advice on this one. May well revisit Tm, still never got one running. Also might well ^Chei one of these since im fairly happy playing that slow and the power boost he gives earlygame is immense.
Dracs - Tried a number of Cj^Veh. Thats a pretty good combo since its elementally neutral and fits any colour. I can probably get this one, its likely just a matter of time.
Op - hadnt thought of IE for ozu's armour, just shows how little I've played IE. Guess I'll try this one, or FE. I suppose one of those two would work well since you could feasibly find and stack enhancer rings on this combo.
Fe - I guess i'll make it some kind of mage to keep it out of melee.
Mu - Might be i'll try some Gozag mummies, I actually took him last night on a Mu, but he immediately ran into the business end of a GSC, so i'll try again. I was running Summoner, which I dont mind playing at all and quite like since derived undead started expiring. I'll still keep looking for advice after winning one though Sandman, I dont think anyone ever feels they know it all and have no questions
There was some talk earlier of panic buttons, gods making earlygame a cakewalk and so forth...
There are a few things I just dont do, one of them is berserk. Even as a Be, I just tend not to do it. My OgBe winner went berserk exactly once and it was involuntary. Since then I've learned just how strong it actually is and how many times it can save you earlygame (Og had walls of hp and gsc{speed} so i guess he just didnt need it). So now I do berserk occasionally, but still nowhere near as much as anyone else I've watched. Just a personal thing, I am really picky about losing control of my character or even losing options, its why I wont necromutate.
This makes Trog questionable for me, since im not going to leverage him wheres he's most useful anyway and it locks me out of spellcasting, which pokes my brainbug.
I am fairly bad at remembering to use divine abilities altogether, which is why I did so much ^Ash to begin with. I've gotten better at this thanks to UC^Oka, where you really need to be leaning on Hero. Oka is still kickass A1 in trunk, those abilities rock as much as ever.
Dith upset me. I did FoFi Dith so I could use his shadowstep as an escape. But it doesnt work on plants/statues in trunk anymore, just sleeping mobs and i've gone right off the guy lately tbh. I like shadow mimic if im going to properly invest in a launcher. In melee, as Sar said, i'd rather have hero/fin.
Im pretty open with gods and have tried most at some point, I tend to pick the first of a list of 3-4 I draw up before the run. Early altar is key for certain deities. Nem I like and have won, newnem is pretty boss.
I should add that I enjoy every run, even where you splat 500 mummies... If this wasnt fun I wouldnt do it, and Im surprised that people are surprised, this is the internet guys, loads of different people and personalities remember?
Once again guys, thanks for all your contributions!
Online Wins: MiFi, GrFi, TrMo, HOGl, SpEn, {DEWz, DDNe}, {OgBe, CeHu}, FoFi, VSFi, MfGl, {HaGl, VpEn, HESk}, KoAs, DsFi, TeMo