Why bother having good mutations if you want the Abyss rune?

[PowerOfKaishin]

What the hell is the point of having good mutations if a single encounter with a neqoxec forces you to sack them all.

The first one I encountered in the abyss gave me 3 bad muts. This is ridiculous. I'm playing a transmuter that decided to go nearly full melee and I see a neqoxec and it sees me. I do the logical thing and prepare to bash its head in, by ducking around a corner and forcing it to come into melee range. While I was waiting, I hasted and statue formed myself so I could wreck it quickly. Maybe it was a mistake not to use blade hands, but it is absolutely ridiculous that I got 3 of these things because my unarmed attacks decided to miss several shots. Had I casted blade hands instead I still wouldn't have killed it before getting at least 2. What is a melee character supposed to do to avoid bad muts?

I finally just gave up and berserked it instead, killing it in one shot.

[wizzzargh]

killing them with wands/evocables or javelins or summons works well. Having melee as your main mode of attack doesn't mean you have to sacrifice all other means of battle.

[Hurkyl]

I probably shouldn't mention that having good mutations actually reduces the likelihood that you can cure the bad mutations, because it's possible for the potion to target the good ones first and get used up before it reaches the bad ones.

[PowerOfKaishin]

killing them with wands/evocables or javelins or summons works well.

Oh wow, apparently Neqoxecs are actually really frail. This is news to me. I wish that I'd have known that one or two shots of ice blast would do it. This sort of thing should be more obvious, especially to a game-ruiner like that monster.

Having melee as your main mode of attack doesn't mean you have to sacrifice all other means of battle.

Iceblast and Sticks to Snakes were my only alternatives, and I dismissed them since I thought they would be too weak. Generally I only use iceblast to start an immolation chain at that late in the game. The rest of my exp was used on auxiliary stuff, like Haste and CBlink.

[Eyesburn]

I do the logical thing and prepare to bash its head in, by ducking around a corner and forcing it to come into melee range. While I was waiting, I hasted and statue formed myself so I could wreck it quickly.

Instead you could just walk away (duck around a corrner, haste, run).

What is a melee character supposed to do to avoid bad muts?

Stealth also helps not to be noticed by neqoxec or other stuff. Maybe fog scroll then tele.

[daggaz]

mutations dont matter much either way

[lethediver]

Malmutate is pretty BS now that rMut is gone.

[ZipZipskins]

No it isn't, it just actually sometimes has an impact now

edit to clarify: by "sometimes" I mean "incredibly rarely", and by "an impact" I mean "you have to quaff curemut to get rid of slow movement and lose your antennae"

so "No it isn't, it just actually incredibly rarely has you have to quaff curemut to get rid of slow movement and lose your antennae now"

[CanOfWorms]

You can't actually get slow movement as a mutation, unless that was changed recently?

[johlstei]

You used to be able to, it was evil, though the time I got the corresponding good mutation to get a spriggan-speed centaur was pretty great.

[ZipZipskins]

You can't actually get slow movement as a mutation, unless that was changed recently?

you're right consider my point invalid