How to deal with shock serpents?

[reaver]

I've died to shock serpents a couple times and I'm not sure what the best way to deal with them is.

Always use long-range wands while they approach? Use other consumables if the position is even slightly bad? Just try to avoid them?

[Sandman25]

If I can't handle one shock serpent one on one, I don't enter Snake. Even Shoals can be easier for some characters.
If I have no choice, I explore manually, lure monsters to fight one on one and when fighting shock serpent I use heal wounds. Sometimes I even quaff potion of resistance to survive

[dpeg]

_Sandman25: Why ? This sounds great, all parts of it!

[Berder]

Ways to deal with shock serpents

• polymorph them
• paralyze them and kill them (will take damage, still)
• be fairly strong with relec and just destroy them
• be super strong without relec
• have plenty of ?blink/?fear and other escapes in case the shock serpent fight goes wrong (always good for snake anyway because of guardian serpents). I generally refuse snake unless there is absolutely no alternative if I'm out of ?blink.
• kill them at range with spells, especially spells that don't check ev

[Rast]

Just have a bucketload of AC

[Sandman25]

_Sandman25: Why ? This sounds great, all parts of it!

Because it means I have just increased my chances to die to Nikola/Titan/Caustic Shrike/Electric Golem/Orb of Fire later. Using a consumables always makes me unhappy, especially a rare one.

[duvessa]

same way you do with all the other anti-melee monsters: use something ranged if your character isn't strong. really it's pretty much a spriggan whatever that can't open doors and is a bit more curareable and a lot more hexable. taking the retribution damage is a lot better than just letting it hit you btw (the mechanic is functionally almost identical to spiny)
they are pretty much the most dangerous monster in snake so don't treat them like something else

[bel]

I usually polymorph or confuse shock serpents.

[celem]

Yeah, hate shock serpents. You've either got rElec and forget they are ever a threat or you dont and it becomes peak threat in Snake for many characters.

Zapping them with attack wands isnt too helpful unless you invested somewhat into Evo, they are not a knockover and will use up a lot of charges, probably getting into melee and eating half your health in the process. Plus I prefer to carry lightning wands over anything else since its least resisted, but doesnt scratch SSerpents of course. I also tend to have the same problem with throwing stuff at them, you need a good chunk of skill to do anything significant before they close. Utility wands are pretty good... paralyse, confuse, slow. Not really tried a launcher that I can recall but that probably works fine.

Ultimately I prefer high HP and fast reliable damage output. Try to split them from anything they might be with and burst them down. Whats important is effective damage per round. Any tricks that affect relative attack speed or improve your accuracy are pretty key, because you are spending a fraction of your HP bar to kill them and you dont want it to be too big of a chunk because they are really really noisy to boot.

Spells is probably best if you lack resists and dont want to lose hp. blow them up or Hex them, their MR is pretty trash.

No matter what however theres a good chance they will wing you once or twice with a discharge when they get hurt, plan accordingly, because they hurt you right back.

edit: while i dont normally branch hop on the S-branches... I will almost always bail on Snake if I hit too many on 1-2 and lack the resist. I'll often even do elf 1-2 (minus blade) looking for shops before going back. Because while theres plenty of elec in Elf, it just doesnt seem to hurt as much as a pissed off shock serpent that you are not killing quickly enough.

[Siegurt]

Paralysis wands and ranged weapons at max range are my current favorite, but also smashing them with lots of (preferably unavoidable) damage and really high AC also work pretty well...

[jejorda2]

The last few times I faced them with rElec, the damage was still not something I could ignore.

[Sandman25]

High AC does not help much either.

[Sprucery]

What determines how big the shock serpent explosion radius is?

[Berder]

The more damage dealt to the shock serpent, the larger and more damaging its explosion.

[Sprucery]

OK so you want to calculate what is the maximum damage that doesn't make the explosion reach you. Maybe throw tomahawks instead of javelins as the serpent comes closer etc. Not very fun imo.

[WhiteShark]

Hex wands are the way to go. Shock serpents have low MR so it's pretty easy to paralyze/confuse/polymorph them. edit: forgot slow and enslavement wands

[scorpionwarrior]

If you have a good summon ability like shadow creatures, menagerie, or mahkleb they can usually kill or damage them enough that they're not a huge threat.

[tasonir]

OK so you want to calculate what is the maximum damage that doesn't make the explosion reach you. Maybe throw tomahawks instead of javelins as the serpent comes closer etc. Not very fun imo.

1) You can't calculate how much damage a random roll will do, and
2) I'm highly doubtful ever intentionally doing less damage than you could possibly due is a good way to improve your odds of survival. I mean, you don't want to waste limited effects when you don't need them, but in the case of tomahawks vs javelins, I'm assuming your javelins aren't critically limited.

[Sprucery]

1) You can't calculate how much damage a random roll will do

Well, you would calculate the maximum damage.

I still don't think that it is a good mechanic that killing the serpent with two medium damage attacks might be better than killing it with one powerful attack.

Also, I don't expect anyone to ever do this kind of thing but the hypothetical optimal player might.