Transmuter vs Ghost and Phantom

[Lawndart Jedi]

How to handle Ghosts and Phantoms as a Transmuter. I've tried training the skills in different ways and doesn't seam to have effect. Tried summoning loads of snakes but they instant die. With ghosts I seam to always get confused and killed in two turns. For Phantoms I can never hit them and they just peck away.

[tedric]

if you're dying to things that you don't absolutely need to fight, you can just not fight them

[bel]

Ghosts are basically random uniques, often the best way to handle them is to avoid them.
Phantoms blink often. in the worst case, run to stairs and wait for them to blink away (either before or after using the stairs).

[Lawndart Jedi]

if you're dying to things that you don't absolutely need to fight, you can just not fight them

Nice statement. HOW!!!

You can't run away from them. If you try to go up stairs they kill you while your climbing, since it takes a lot of time to climb. Try to use Teleport and they kill you while you wait.

Last game I was standing on stairs and ghost came around corner and killed me when I tried to flee up.

[Dharmy]

When you first encounter a ghost and it's much stronger than you (which they typically are), you should walk towards the nearest up stairs and take it, rest until healed, then explore the level from a different stair. You can always move on to the next floor and come back to kill it when you are stronger.

With phantoms, you can throw things at it until it gets next to you, then hit it. If the fight goes poorly, walk away from it in the general direction of an up stair. If you are on the stairs and it's next to you, keep walking. Eventually it will blink away from you and you can reach the stairs without it being next to you. Then you can go up, rest, and try fighting it again.

[tedric]

I don't believe that these "unavoidable" situations are as common as you're making it seem. I mean, "killed while climbing stairs" can't possibly happen every time you meet a player ghost, or even most of the time, unless you are doing something risky. I know this because I use stairs to escape/avoid ghosts all the time and I cannot remember the last time it killed me from full health. According to LearnDB you only spend 10 aut "leaving" the level -- one turn/step at normal move speed. (The whole stair-taking process is longer because there's an "entering" phase for the level you're moving to, but player ghosts can't follow you for that part.) If you're routinely dying in a single turn, you are probably making some kind of mistake leading up to that turn.

Were you standing on the stairs while resting and below full health? Rest on the floor above next time.

Were you resting on stairs adjacent to a corner where enemies could wander into LOS at melee range? Rest at different stairs, or on the floor above.

Are you reading Tele and then passing turns while the ghost can hit you? You should be moving away or trying to block LOS while you wait.

Are you picking fights with ghosts even though they are dangerous? Use 'xv' to check out a ghost the moment it enters LOS, so you know how tough it is and what spells it's packing.

Are you only trying to escape when you're already at low health? Don't wait so long. If the fight's not close to over and you're at 75% hp, do something to escape or end it quickly. If you're below 50%, escape immediately.

Are you using all of the options at your disposal? Tough fights can often be trivialized by popping !might, !berserk, !invis, or using wands, evokers, god abilities, etc.

[tedric]

Also: Phantoms are basically just beefier, quieter Crimson Imps. If you find them more annoying than dangerous, you can park them the same way: lure it upstairs, wait for it to blink away, then go back down and continue enjoying your game.

[daggaz]

The only good way to deal with them is to go TSO, get to champion and bless a big 2hander, then come back and spam angels at them. Or park it up the stairs as mentioned.

One thing not mentioned in this thread is that you can take advantage of their blinking behavior without using stairs, simply by choosing corridors with lots of twists in them, or any path really where you can break line of sight multiple times in as few steps as possible. If they are following you, a blink may very well take them out of LoS, and if they lose LoS either way, they will often end up blinking around completely lost and unable to track you. Even a very noisy character can use this to buy the turns needed to get to some stairs and rest.

[Lawndart Jedi]

Something is definitively wrong, I'm even having a hard time getting off level 1. I am dying to rats with out doing any damage and worms can run me down and kill me.

I know I'm a worthless human but this is just proff of what shit I am.

[Laraso]

Worms are speed 6... Players are speed 10... You move 40% faster than worms, there's no way they are chasing you down and killing you.

[bcadren]

I remember feeling like worms were chasing me down...it was just getting cornered (dead end or other monster on other side)...plenty of time to do SOMETHING though.

There is a chance; Landart had really bad luck with ghosts. I remember a SpEn ghost with dazzling spray, invis, silence, blink, mass confuse; wielding a Chaos Dagger on Orc:4 piece of shit. I barely got away and it kept me from doing Orc:4 for awhile. Check the movement speed of player ghosts before trying to walk away or whatever. And you can just avoid going into melee range if you are unsure (teleport/walk away upon seeing; not after seeing you are too weak to melee).

[stoneychips]

Phantoms can seem very scary in the very early game, and player ghosts can be outright terrifying. But you should be able to run away much of the time, if you turn back as soon as you see them. Even if a skirmish goes badly for a round or few, the phantoms will still blink away periodically if you have some buffer.

Are you leaving yourself a predictable avenue of escape? I usually try to move from the outsides of a level inward, and stay in narrow corridors as much as possible. It may help if the corridor has some twists and turns to hide behind - more so you can back off early or lose them at branches. Backing into unknown directions, and where they can see you longer, can make it easier for them to corner you.

Both phantoms and player ghosts are undead. Try picking up some branded weapons just in case? In particular, you could try to fight them with any holy weapons you've managed to find. Even if you have no specialization in that weapon, a few hits of holy (or any element that still cuts the ghost) can hammer them if your defenses/luck hold out. Not so much on D1, but it's pretty amazing what some early characters can do with even an untrained dagger of holy wrath sometimes. I don't know what kind of damage you're packing with your spells this early, but blue weapons also won't run out of effect duration/MP while you're waiting for the phantom to get back in range. (A sling can also be a nice back-up weapon for pelting the phantoms when they blink off.)

In that line of using all options, which tedric mentioned: If you really seem to be going down anyway, and you're sure you can't run away: Don't be afraid to randomly pop unknown potions. You'll sometimes draw poison etc., but there are some very useful ones out there too. If you're lucky, you'll survive and end up having identified more potions for later as a bonus.

[Sprucery]

I don't remember a single time when I would have been really threatened by a phantom. They are so easy to escape from.

[tasonir]

Phantoms have relatively beefy melee stats. I can easily see a newer player running into trouble with them because they are focused on "winning" the fight and not getting away from it. Experienced players know adding blink to a monster makes that monster LESS threatening, but when I was new I just held tab until it died or I died...

In summary, escape if you can't handle them yet. Once you come back later with higher exp (or just never come back), they'll be easy. Also transmuters are generally considered the weakest background, because they have to try to learn magic as well as melee, and specifically unarmed which is weak early on. They're among my favorite backgrounds and I encourage you to keep playing them, but be aware unarmed is weak in the early dungeon. If you want an easier time consider a Minotaur gladiator, they're very newbie friendly. Also berserker is a good background if you are familiar with how to play Trog characters (it's easy).