Spriggan + Hat of Pondering?

[infinitevox]

Is this a good idea, or a GREAT idea?
I never play spriggans, so I don't know how smart it would be.

Speed 3 decreases movement delay by -4, ponderous increases by +1
So that still gives me the equivalent of Speed 2 mutation, ie Delay -3.

And yes, I'm spell casting. :p

[nago]

I'd still strongly evaluated more speed 3 over the bonus it gives but I guess it's kinda less awful than for other char especially if you don't have other headgear

[infinitevox]

Found 6 uniques so far on D:12....
Not wearing the hat either, after running into Rupert I'm glad I wasn't wearing it. Out running a berserk guy with a holy mace is pretty awesome.

[edgefigaro]

Hat of pondering is amaze and even more amaze on a spriggan. It is certainly better than any standard hat.

[nago]

Hat of pondering is amaze and even more amaze on a spriggan. It is certainly better than any standard hat.

This is 101% wrong and an awful advice. Hat of pondering is one of the worst item in the game.

For almost every char going hatless is far far better, because move speed is the most important attribute in the game, for positioning in relation of enemy, escaping and much more. The game is "balanced" around speed 10, becoming suddenly slower than that means you can't escape from most threats ("balanced" about being speed 10), ranged enemies are suddenly far more threatening, you can't position as well during battle and so on.

Virtually, no other bonus you can get in the game can offset, or be better than that, and certainly not what hat of pondering gives.
Obviously a Sp can somewhat balance it because it's still speed 2+, likewise a Ce, but I don't think hat's bonus are good enough to lose that 0.1 move speed even on a fast race.

[zxc23]

I think the negatives of this hat get blown up a bit. It can be a good hat (actually I like using the ponderous plate too when decent plate is unavailable). MR is very important, 10 mp and 5 int are a lot, and 1.1 move delay isn't that bad if you are well aware of it, outside of the early game. It does also offer 3 ac if you are currently hatless. https://crawl.project357.org/morgue/zzx ... 162851.txt is an Op game I played while using the pondering hat from Orc onwards. I wouldn't recommend it to new players though, or indeed anyone who is unsure about the decision.

[Tiktacy]

Hat of pondering is amaze and even more amaze on a spriggan. It is certainly better than any standard hat.

This is 101% wrong and an awful advice. Hat of pondering is one of the worst item in the game.

Hat of pondering is a decent item if you are a new-ish player since the value of your speed isn't being used to its full advantage. You could argue that it encourages bad play styles, but I seriously doubt an unrand is going to effect the entirety of a persons outlook on the game and push them backwards in any way.

If you feel like HoP is giving you a significant advantage worth sacrificing your speed for, then use it. If you are confident in your abilities enough to take full advantage of your characters placement beyond simply luring enemy mobs into corridors, then you really shouldn't bother with it unless you feel like you would enjoy the self-imposed conduct of doing otherwise.

As for a spriggan and Centaur, its honestly not a bad item regardless of skill level, aside from the most fox-only-final-destination tier players.

[Sar]

Honestly I would probably use badhat if I was something facerolly like a Mi or HO and wanted MR, because for me MR is the defining characteristic of the hat. Well, MP is nice if you have spirit and AC on it isn't bad either!

[WingedEspeon]

I was very happy to use the hat on one of my wins (I think it was DgGl) because I had boots of running so I moved at normal speed, I NEEDED MR, and I was useing spirit shield so the MP was useful.

[Tiktacy]

I actually used the hat on my very first win with my MfGl^Chei. Although, I mostly wore it simply for flavor purposes, being a follower of chei and all. My Merfolk was so powerful by the time I got it anyway that I wouldn't have noticed even if it was a huge disadvantage.

It also seems to consistently find its way back to me since then, I think its the unrand I've seen the most of by far. It helped me in a fight against rupert once, can't think of anything note worthy beyond that though. Take my advice with a grain of salt though, my games often end in a splat regardless of slowed movement.

[ZipZipskins]

Oh boy here we are with the goddamn hat of pondering, look, they should probably rename it to hat of dying to yaktaurs so new players more fully understand the hat.

Are there situations where it's useful? Sure, definitely, there are characters that can use it and not bite the old dust. But it requires a balancing risk/reward act and understanding of how to deal with the hat and a +2 helmet is for most characters infinitely less likely to kick their buckets. So the old advice, don't wear it, is good advice for the vast majority of situations

Side edit I like to wear it because losing is fun and I'm a bad player so typically I don't play opppppptimalllyyyyyyyyyy, so there's that to consider

[WingedEspeon]

Oh boy here we are with the goddamn hat of pondering, look, they should probably rename it to hat of dying to yaktaurs so new players more fully understand the hat.

Are there situations where it's useful? Sure, definitely, there are characters that can use it and not bite the old dust. But it requires a balancing risk/reward act and understanding of how to deal with the hat and a +2 helmet is for most characters infinitely less likely to kick their buckets. So the old advice, don't wear it, is good advice for the vast majority of situations

Side edit I like to wear it because losing is fun and I'm a bad player so typically I don't play opppppptimalllyyyyyyyyyy, so there's that to consider

There are some characters that are otherwize super strong but lacking MR so they are more likely to die to something like A-lich paralysis without the hat than to the slow movement with the hat. However, this is the exception rather than the rule.

[edgefigaro]

Walking away becomes less and less important as the game progresses. ?Fear exists and is super useful through vaults. ?blink exists. ?tele is plentyful. Further, the hat doesn't prevent you from walking away just like having a normal speed char doesn't prevent you from escaping from either a pack of spiders or an OoF.

The +3 hat, +MR, +Int, and +MP opens up a character quite rapidly imo, more than enough to offset the speed penalty. I find this true of any character can make use off all the benefits, which are most characters that aren't heavy armor users/trog worshipers. I nearly never play those two types of characters, and nearly always wear pondering if I find it.

[infinitevox]

I decided against using it for now, especially considering I'm currently tackling the Snake Pit.

I've got a randart +10 spear that I've been using to excellent effect by evoking it to attack and always keeping a square between me and the non-ranged threats. The ranged ones I heavily coat with mephetic cloud and nuke down with fireball or my rod of destruction.

Character is going pretty well, I've run into another situation or two involving naga sharpshooters where I was glad I wasn't wearing the hat and could easily run away fast. But also in those instances I have the Blink spell, blink scroll, fog scroll, tele, etc. So really not wearing it just saved me some consumables.
Probably not going to use the hat afterall tbh, unless I get firestorm online and decide to zig. Then I might consider it since I'll be nuking everything from the edge of LoS anyway.

[WingedEspeon]

Even with slowhat a spriggan can easily run away from naga sharpshooters. You can generally run away from naga sharpshooters as a human.

[ZipZipskins]

Walking away becomes less and less important as the game progresses. ?Fear exists and is super useful through vaults. ?blink exists. ?tele is plentyful. Further, the hat doesn't prevent you from walking away just like having a normal speed char doesn't prevent you from escaping from either a pack of spiders or an OoF.

Actually sometimes it does prevent you from walking away, but that's beside the point because the hat of pondering negatively affects all movement, not just direct movement away from a threat. Presenting this as a case of "meh you're probably equipped with enough consumables not to have to run" is quite different from reality, in which casting a spell or quaffing or reading or evoking or whatever is not necessarily better than moving to a more advantageous position. Fleeing is not the only movement in Crawl and so I maintain that advising someone who is asking about whether to wear the hat that it is in all regards better than a normal hat is pretty unfantastic.

[edgefigaro]

Walking away becomes less and less important as the game progresses. ?Fear exists and is super useful through vaults. ?blink exists. ?tele is plentyful. Further, the hat doesn't prevent you from walking away just like having a normal speed char doesn't prevent you from escaping from either a pack of spiders or an OoF.

Actually sometimes it does prevent you from walking away, but that's beside the point because the hat of pondering negatively affects all movement, not just direct movement away from a threat. Presenting this as a case of "meh you're probably equipped with enough consumables not to have to run" is quite different from reality, in which casting a spell or quaffing or reading or evoking or whatever is not necessarily better than moving to a more advantageous position. Fleeing is not the only movement in Crawl and so I maintain that advising someone who is asking about whether to wear the hat that it is in all regards better than a normal hat is pretty unfantastic.

This is pretty fair. I'd agree that if you have to ask about pondering, you probably shouldn't. I maintain that on balance, it is a really strong hat.

[radinms]

wow there are a lot of trolling advices here

[prozacelf]

FWIW I was happy to use it on a TeCj from the time I killed Gastronok onwards....so Lair:3 or so through the rest of a 5 or 6 rune run. Tengu permaflight or boots of running exactly cancel out the pondering speed malus, so I'd think it would be a perfectly legitimate thing to wear on a Sp or Ce....or a Fe if any of the devs had ever read Dr. Seuss in their lives =P

[tabstorm]

As long as you are not in the early game where needing to run 50+ squares to an upstair because of an unkillable monster is an important consideration the hat is not a bad item. It gives MR+ which helps prevent you from randomly dying to paralysis or lowish-XL banishment. I wear things like hat/plate of pondering (if its high enough enchant) all the time and I can't remember a single time I've died to 0.1 additional movesped.

Seriously how many enemies are there past early game that satisfy:
1. Speed 10
2. Can kill you in melee if you fight it
3. Has no ranged attacks

Not many. It's pretty much just uniques and hydras and most uniques have some kind of ranged attack. If you use pondering you won't be able to run away across the map from a unique who uses ranged attacks. Usually I just teleport away from such enemies even when I move at speed 10 but whatever.

I kind of wish plates of pondering with high enchant spawned more though.

[njvack]

Walking away becomes less and less important as the game progresses. ?Fear exists and is super useful through vaults. ?blink exists. ?tele is plentyful.

I'm not, like, a super good player but I think walking away actually keeps being really important all the way through 15 runes. You never run out of it, y'know?

?tele on unexplored levels in particular is kind of awful. It's really nice to approach something like grunt_profane_halls in a controlled manner.

Sure, if you have a huge stack of ?blinking, they'll get you out of emergencies, but gearing up in a way that tends to cause emergencies is not normally a recipe for success.

[ZipZipskins]

These arguments are still predicated on the assumption that the only moving you do in combat is fleeing which is still pretty silly imo

[njvack]

How are the arguments different if you're moving in a non-fleeing way? Being slower lets monsters take more actions against you while you move whether it's away from them or not. This is bad, but not always the worst thing.

I mean, you can reposition in melee even following Chei; sometimes it's even a good idea to do so. You just need to be aware of the costs.

[edgefigaro]

Walking away becomes less and less important as the game progresses. ?Fear exists and is super useful through vaults. ?blink exists. ?tele is plentyful.

I'm not, like, a super good player but I think walking away actually keeps being really important all the way through 15 runes. You never run out of it, y'know?

?tele on unexplored levels in particular is kind of awful. It's really nice to approach something like grunt_profane_halls in a controlled manner.

Sure, if you have a huge stack of ?blinking, they'll get you out of emergencies, but gearing up in a way that tends to cause emergencies is not normally a recipe for success.

Frequently in Depths, I want to engage a [large] set of monsters, kill some of them, and retreat. If a juggernaut shows up at range while I am fighting a troll pack and a dragon, I may want to blow a wand of draining and my mana pool to drop the juggernaut, not really caring too much about the dragon and the trolls. I can disengage from the dragon and trolls if I need to. If a couple follow me up the stairs that is fine.

This kind of situation is relatively common later in the game, and completely non-existent early in the game. You want to bring to bear the a fuller force of your character to encounters to get rid of the threats. A similar situation of fighting a priestless orc pack while sigmund shows up on d3 is not similar at all. Move speed is very important in such a situation.

Back to the hat of pondering, the hat of pondering allows you to bring a fuller force to bear against larger scale engagements for a speed penalty that becomes less and less relevant as the game progresses as the nature of fights and threats changes. The +3 and +MR are valuable defenses, the +5 int opens up the next level of magic, and the +10 MP lets you use plenty of magic over the course of an encounter.

Note, you do have to position yourself well to not spend too much time repositioning, but those kind of plays are generally tactically superior with or without pondering. The smarter you know how to play, the better pondering becomes. Conversely, the worse you are at positioning in general, the worse pondering is for you.

[ZipZipskins]

How are the arguments different if you're moving in a non-fleeing way? Being slower lets monsters take more actions against you while you move whether it's away from them or not. This is bad, but not always the worst thing.

I mean, you can reposition in melee even following Chei; sometimes it's even a good idea to do so. You just need to be aware of the costs.

The whole point is that the people who ask about using pondering typically AREN'T aware of the costs, and presenting the costs as "you can't run away" is pretty disingenuous

[lethediver]

Found 6 uniques so far on D:12....
Not wearing the hat either, after running into Rupert I'm glad I wasn't wearing it. Out running a berserk guy with a holy mace is pretty awesome.

Did you fight them all at the same time and prove your heroism?