O to Mad-dash for the Sword of Cerebov (and use it well)


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Post Saturday, 27th June 2015, 01:54

O to Mad-dash for the Sword of Cerebov (and use it well)

Quest
By the time people are 'prepared' to do Pan, they usually have a weapon as good or better than Cerebov's. It would be interesting, though, to have his sword as your main weapon for a large chunk of the game. The only way I see to make Sword of Cerebov useful is to get it relatively early. The earlier the better, but no special rules, so all branches are 'allowed', and clearing D/L/O is a given. In order to do this, a character must be able to:
1) survive encounters in Depths
2) travel across many Pan floors
3) kill Cerebov without dunking him in lava
The last goal is the most interesting one. What is the single reliable way for a severely underpowered character to destroy the game's single toughest monster? Oklob farms, so Fedhas is a given. If you carry a good number of fruit into Cerebov's domain, I assume you can pre-emptively celebrate his demise. Any character than can survive Pan can survive Depths, so let's examine viable species.

  • DD damage shaving and passive mapping significantly facilitates shuttling through Pan levels, plus they never need to wait to regen like other races. You have to start off as a Necromancer, which is okay, you just won't be animating corpses.
  • DS mutations can potentially take a lot of sting out of Depths/Pan.
  • Ce has high speed, so it should have an easier time running from stuff in Pan.
  • Mf/Op are aquatic, but you probably can't spam Fedhas powers in Pan, so - whatever.
  • HE has good aptitudes for skills you want to train eventually (fire, charms, long blades...), but that might not help with the pre-Cerebov part of the game very much, depending on what you manage to find.
  • Te has good aptitudes too, and also doesn't mind water, but again - whatever.
  • Some Dr develop a minor benefit that may help survive Depths/Pan.
  • VS regenerates so quickly that they never have to wait around for long, and can train stealth to very levels by mid-game, but Pan can kill you very quickly regardless.
  • HO/DE/Tr/Mi/Ko/Og/Hu/Na/Fo/Gr/Ha don't seem to profer any particular suitability for this quest.
  • Mu/Gh/Vp/Dg can't worship Fedhas.
  • Sp/Ha/Ko/Fe can't wield great swords.

Thoughts? I haven't tried it. This is pre-emptive speculation.

mps

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Post Saturday, 27th June 2015, 02:08

Re: O to Mad-dash for the Sword of Cerebov (and use it well)

Clearly the easiest way to get an early cerebov kill is MiBe or DDBe. With trog you might have a better weapon, but you could use the sword anyway. It would be fine for 4 or 5 rune game.
Dungeon Crawling Advice tl;dr: Protect ya neck.

Sar

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Post Saturday, 27th June 2015, 02:17

Re: O to Mad-dash for the Sword of Cerebov (and use it well)

I observed a player doing something like that. He was successful in grabbing the sword, but IIRC died later. The race was a HE I think (HE suck, the player was good though).

Edit: no, he didn't die! http://underhound.eu:81/crawl/morgue/dck/morgue-dck-20131006-195804.txt
Last edited by Sar on Saturday, 27th June 2015, 02:36, edited 2 times in total.

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Sandman25

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Post Saturday, 27th June 2015, 02:23

Re: O to Mad-dash for the Sword of Cerebov (and use it well)

  Code:
<halberd> !lm * uniq=cerebov xl<22 s=xl,char,god o=xl
<Sequell> 19 milestones for * (uniq=cerebov xl<22): 12x 21 (MuCj (Sif Muna), MDFi (The Shining One), 4x LOFi (4x Beogh), 3x HOFi (3x Beogh), HEWr (Makhleb), DDBe (Makhleb), CeNe (Sif Muna)), 3x 20 (SEFi (The Shining One), LOSk (Beogh), HOMo (Beogh)), 2x 19 (MiFi (Okawaru), LOFi (Beogh)), 2x 18 (MiGl (The Shining One), MiFi (The Shining One))
streaks: 5 fifteen rune octopodes. 15 diverse chars. 13 random chars. 24 NaWn^gozag.
251 total wins Berder hyperborean + misc
83/108 recent wins (76%)
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Pollen_Golem

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Post Saturday, 27th June 2015, 02:24

Re: O to Mad-dash for the Sword of Cerebov (and use it well)

Pollen_Golem wrote:What is the single reliable way for a severely underpowered character to destroy the game's single toughest monster?


Needles of paralysis. Ce/Ha/Ko have +3 aptitude in throwing, Trog/Oka gift the needles.

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Pollen_Golem

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Post Saturday, 27th June 2015, 03:33

Re: O to Mad-dash for the Sword of Cerebov (and use it well)

Sandman25 wrote:
Needles of paralysis. Ce/Ha/Ko have +3 aptitude in throwing, Trog/Oka gift the needles.

Can small races even wield Greatswords?

Swamp Slogger

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Post Saturday, 27th June 2015, 03:57

Re: O to Mad-dash for the Sword of Cerebov (and use it well)

Pollen_Golem wrote:
  • Sp/Ha/Ko/Fe can't wield great swords.
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Pandemonium Purger

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Post Saturday, 27th June 2015, 20:27

Re: O to Mad-dash for the Sword of Cerebov (and use it well)

Oh wow, needles of paralysis. It really works in Wizmode. I used to think that rPois or demonic nature blocks needle effects. Then I found this:
http://crawl.chaosforge.org/Brand#Needle_brands
There's a saving throw for monsters: if 1 + 1d(4 + your throwing skill + your blowgun’s enchantment) is greater than the monster’s hit dice, the effect will be applied.


Cerebov has HD 21. Hopefully my calculations are correct: if you use a +9 blowgun and Oka's Heroism, then you have 0 chance to paralyze Cerebov at natural throwing skill 2, 1/5 chance at skill 7, 1/3 chance at skill 12, and 1/2 chance at skill 22. One in three sounds good enough, and skill 12 is modest on any species, although Centaurs are still good for this.

Sar wrote:I observed a player doing something like that. He was successful in grabbing the sword, but IIRC died later. The race was a HE I think (HE suck, the player was good though).

Edit: no, he didn't die! http://underhound.eu:81/crawl/morgue/dck/morgue-dck-20131006-195804.txt


It looks like he simply brute-forced his way through Cerebov. He had cleaned Elf and Dungeon down to level 25, which I guess is equivalent to all of Depths today, and entered a treasure trove. Just a solid character that relied on both aich-double-use (heal wounds and holy wrath) to win the fight. I suppose he summoned some greater servants to help out, as well. I'm looking for a cheap, cheesy way to do it, and I think I've found 2.
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Barkeep

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Post Sunday, 28th June 2015, 01:34

Re: O to Mad-dash for the Sword of Cerebov (and use it well)

I'd bet that, assuming high Trog piety, spamming bros would also work.
I am not a very good player. My mouth is a foul pit of LIES. KNOW THIS.

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mps

mps

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Post Sunday, 28th June 2015, 02:04

Re: O to Mad-dash for the Sword of Cerebov (and use it well)

Indeed, bros are v effective against panlords, although somewhat less so against cerebov and lom.
Dungeon Crawling Advice tl;dr: Protect ya neck.

Sar

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Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Sunday, 28th June 2015, 03:42

Re: O to Mad-dash for the Sword of Cerebov (and use it well)

this really just depends on whether he's gonna storm or not

then again, if you are with Trog anti-magic weapon is fairly effective at making him not storm you

mps

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Post Sunday, 28th June 2015, 05:26

Re: O to Mad-dash for the Sword of Cerebov (and use it well)

Yeah, get some bros, use trog's hand, berserk. With an antimagic weapon, should be a reasonable all in strategy for this kind of challenge run.
Dungeon Crawling Advice tl;dr: Protect ya neck.
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Tomb Titivator

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Post Sunday, 28th June 2015, 18:14

Re: O to Mad-dash for the Sword of Cerebov (and use it well)

This sounds like a sprint idea (red sonja wants you to kill lom lobon underleveled in the same way).
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Post Monday, 29th June 2015, 07:37

Re: O to Mad-dash for the Sword of Cerebov (and use it well)

other easy ways to kill cerebov: disc of storms, fcloud+channeling spam

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