Man, shoals is rough.

[PowerOfKaishin]

If someone wants to tell me how to get a morgue off of Project357, be my guest.

In any case, OpTm died there. I got to Shoals:4 and there were a bunch of circular vaults with single entrances. I had invis and 7+s of stealth (8 in water) and I had a whole bunch of charging and tele, so the strat was basically just walk in to each one, check for rune, walk out before anything wakes up. It worked flawlessly for 3 of them and well enough for 4 more. I got caught once, but it wasn't a big deal.

I eventually found it in a different looking vault surrounded by 3 times as many enemies as in the other ones. From there I had to tele out and then try to sneak back in but everything moves faster than me and, yet again, 8+s of stealth just doesn't cut it for more than like 3 enemies at a time. After several teles later I eventually got shot before one of them went off and died. Another promising OpTm run dead.

There's just no where safe. Even an OpTm has to hope that no one notices him in the corner of the map. Why is Shoals so much more difficult than Swamp? Why can't I just have that every run? FFS Shoals is the hardest lair branch, even more so than Slime. I should've just done that with rCorr and Statue Form instead.

Is there some trick to this place? Shoals just feels unfair. Even with an invisible, stealthy octopode I have no where to run and almost no where to hide. Everything moves faster than me and they do crazy amounts of damage even when I'm in Statue Form. Maybe I'm supposed to stair dance or something, but everything in there has 2-range and 8 things will attack me at once so this doesn't seem very effective.

A part of me thinks that apportation would've made this so much easier, since the rune was in sight before I got caught.

[Tressol]

Shoals can be pretty gross - it really kind of demands good EV/AC, or at least Repel pr Deflect missiles and overwhelming offense. I'm slightly surprised Invis wasn't allowing you to just stab most pf ypur problems away, though.

I think the biggest issue in most Lair branches is that certain escape options (teleport) are just as likely to land you in just another vad situation.

On stair dancing in Shoals: you can go up the stairs and leave the polearm users behind more easily due to their reach (they can't follow you up from 2 squares, though they will get a parting shot). Then, you can come back down a different staircase and attack from a new angle. Kill those merfolk that limit your mobility (sirens? Did they change the name?) immediately, using wands if necessary, so you can retreat if need be (without teleporting into worse trouble). Learn Swiftness, Repel Missiles, and/or Haste if at all possible (haste is a bit high level, but the other two can be huge in getting to stairs).

I'm not that experienced with Octopodes, but I have played a lot of squishy elves and such... thus should all be considered just general Shoals advice. Invis should be very helpful against most Shoals denizens, I believe, but it's (imo) more useful for getting stabs on "aware" foes rather than for the bonus to Stealth checks.

[crate]

dig/disint to open the vaults, don't walk up to them and open the door

[Sprucery]

Invisibility should really cut it. Ilsuiw and aquamancers see invisible but not much else in there.

[PowerOfKaishin]

I had all three of invis, haste, and swiftness below 4%, but I didn't want to cast both invis and haste at the same time (mutation phobia) and in this particular situation I didn't have the time to fire off swiftness since there was an enemy next to me (that I didn't want getting extra shots) and something else firing shit at range.

Invis didn't cut it. :/ I feel like it should give a bonus to stealth in addition to making enemies randomly forget about you. It's hard enough to spot a sneaking octopode and it's not any more difficult to detect their presence when you can't even see them? It's not like they're making any noise.

Remember this is OpTm, not OpEn. The average of my stealth and UC was 11 or something, so that's only an additional 20% damage. It's something for sure, but not a game changer. The extra hit doesn't mean much either since my attacks don't miss anyway.

[crate]

invis is because it's like +9 ev or something, it's really quite a good combat buff

[CanOfWorms]

You don't want to cast invis and haste at the same time regardless of your opinions of mutation because yellow glow negates invisibility. Invisibility already gives you a bonus to stealth (in that it reduces non sInv monsters's chances from seeing you, not increasing your stealth +s directly.) Enemies forgetting about you is directly tied to your stealth.

Also I hope you're aware that standing in water negates most benefits from invisibility, even for octopodes/merfolk. You need to be flying.

[PowerOfKaishin]

You don't want to cast invis and haste at the same time regardless of your opinions of mutation because yellow glow negates invisibility. Invisibility already gives you a bonus to stealth (in that it reduces non sInv monsters's chances from seeing you, not increasing your stealth +s directly.) Enemies forgetting about you is directly tied to your stealth.

Also I hope you're aware that standing in water negates most benefits from invisibility, even for octopodes/merfolk. You need to be flying.

No, I had no idea. I thought it was no different than land in that if you make noise people will find our outline. That would certainly be nice to know. >_>

[CanOfWorms]

The game specifically says "...and don't expect to remain undetected" if you enter shallow water while invisible and not flying.

[Rast]

Also I hope you're aware that standing in water negates most benefits from invisibility, even for octopodes/merfolk.

I didn't know that.

[Tressol]

Yeah, I wasn't really suggesting haste and invis at once. It's more that most of the time, invis should be a significant buff *after* detected by non-aquanacers, and if it gets too real (or vs aquamancers) you have haste. I suggest not relying on Invis providing a significant buff to your Stealth at this stage... Though I agree that Invis should help more in this regard.

All that said, if water negates invis, well, that's that. Also, water helps Merfolk much more than Octopodes, since they get ac/tail. Avoid water when possible in Shoals.

[ZoFy]

Also I hope you're aware that standing in water negates most benefits from invisibility, even for octopodes/merfolk.

Wasn't this fixed back in 0.12 or so? I couldn't find that commit in the changelog but my invisible wizmode octopode gained +50 stealth in water and didn't receive the "don't expect to remain undetected" message.
As for invis+haste combo, it can be done without receiving yellow glow if the source of one effect (or both) is a potion, your spellpower (and duration of the spell) isn't too high and you don't get more glow from a random miscast.

[tabstorm]

Do this with disint:

  Code:

........
...####....
.@#...#.
..#...#
..##+##..
........


The shape is not right in this picture but you get the idea. You can get only one merfolk in view at a time this way.

[CanOfWorms]

Also I hope you're aware that standing in water negates most benefits from invisibility, even for octopodes/merfolk.

Wasn't this fixed back in 0.12 or so? I couldn't find that commit in the changelog but my invisible wizmode octopode gained +50 stealth in water and didn't receive the "don't expect to remain undetected" message.

The +50 stealth from being in water is a species trait of octopodes, it doesn't depend on whether you're invisible. That latter thing is a bug though!

Edit: After doing more testing in wizmode with octopodes it seems like they might actually be invisible? Monster octopodes are still visible as disturbances in the water though so it should be fixed if they're actually invisible.

If you wizmode an invisible octopode in water and spawn a monster, the monster will be able to track your location. Enemy merfolk (Ilsuiw, specifically) suffer from this same effect so it wouldn't make sense for player merfolk (and by extension octopodes) not to do so. The "flavour" behind this is that if you're in water, you're displacing water, which can be seen...

[HardboiledGargoyle]

...because invisibility makes you not only transparent, but also dense as air for the purpose of light refraction, unlike e.g. the invisibility gadgets in Predator, Crysis, etc.

[CanOfWorms]

I did some more testing and monsters *do* create disturbances in shallow water, regardless of being octopodes or merfolk, but don't in deep water so that just adds a layer of confusion. Grey draconians also share this so all amphibious monsters probably have this trait.

[Wahaha]

Yes you should stairdance. Pull enemies 1 by 1 to stairs. If there are too many enemies at a staircase go to a different one. Also maybe go somewhere other than shoals 5 if there is an easier place.

[Rast]

You can save Shoals 5 for after you've cleared Depths and V:1-4. Not like the place has treasure.

[njvack]

Shoals:$ does actually have some loot, IIRC.

[zxc23]

If someone wants to tell me how to get a morgue off of Project357, be my guest.

https://crawl.project357.org/morgue/Kai ... 182953.txt

You can find the morgue by either trawling through your morgue directory on the site (https://crawl.project357.org/morgue/Kaishin/), by checking the CAO scoreboard when it updates every minute or so (http://crawl.akrasiac.org/scoring/players/kaishin.html) or by using !lg queries on ##crawl iRC on freenode.

[PowerOfKaishin]

If someone wants to tell me how to get a morgue off of Project357, be my guest.

https://crawl.project357.org/morgue/Kai ... 182953.txt

You can find the morgue by either trawling through your morgue directory on the site (https://crawl.project357.org/morgue/Kaishin/), by checking the CAO scoreboard when it updates every minute or so (http://crawl.akrasiac.org/scoring/players/kaishin.html) or by using !lg queries on ##crawl iRC on freenode.

Thank you. Now if only there was a button on the actual site such that I didn't have to edit the URL directly.

Anyway, as you can see I was pretty stacked. I could've taken down vaults 5 with the setup I had (statue form+haste in corridor start meleeing things to death and pop tele when in trouble). I guess bad tactics hurt me but shoals is still insanely difficult compared to other branches. Am I expected to clear out each level? I did that as a SpEn when I 15-runed but that was because SpEn kills things with blinding speed. Here I just snuck through them because the enemies were just too strong.

[Hurkyl]

If you can't deal with the normal enemies in a branch, trying to tackle a rune vault probably isn't the greatest of ideas.

[PowerOfKaishin]

If you can't deal with the normal enemies in a branch, trying to tackle a rune vault probably isn't the greatest of ideas.

The other options were Depths (no), Spiders (first encounter nearly killed me from full health in ice form), and Slime (uh... maybe?).

[duvessa]

spider is a lot easier than shoals unless you are like, a mf yourself

[CanOfWorms]

You decided to get Invisibility, Haste and Statue Form online before getting a single rune...? Edit: Looks like you had one source of wizardry and decent int.

Wait a minute, you had Invisibility. Spider is not hard with Invisibility.

Edit2:

  Code:

Level 2 of the Orcish Mines
[Shop] Kuehioqu's Book Shoppe
  a book of Maledictions (375 gold)

You decided to train 10 Hexes for Invisibility and didn't decide to pick up Confuse or Tukima's Dance, two solid Hex spells (especially with your int)???

[PowerOfKaishin]

You decided to get Invisibility, Haste and Statue Form online before getting a single rune...? Edit: Looks like you had one source of wizardry and decent int.

Wait a minute, you had Invisibility. Spider is not hard with Invisibility.

Edit2:

  Code:

Level 2 of the Orcish Mines
[Shop] Kuehioqu's Book Shoppe
  a book of Maledictions (375 gold)

You decided to train 10 Hexes for Invisibility and didn't decide to pick up Confuse or Tukima's Dance, two solid Hex spells (especially with your int)???

Is it? I had no idea. I thought almost all spiders had SInv or something. It's hard to tell.

It's also hard to consider every possible strategy for this game. There's a lot of them. Bear in mind I had a lot of spellcasting and no spell slots left and when I looked in that spellbook shop I was looking for a few things in particular. Even if I had seen it I didn't want to play the confuse game at the moment anyway. I'm not entirely sure of the strategic uses of Tukima's. Never bothered with it. I had Invis before I found those spells and before I found Haste.

[CanOfWorms]

None of the spiders have sInv. Even if they did you can check by xving them...

You do realize a confused monster effectively has no ranged attack, right?

  Code:

 28583 | Orc:2    | Found Kuehioqu's Book Shoppe.
 30435 | D:7      | Bought the Compendium of Dark Benedictions for 750 gold pieces (The book with Haste)

You had the opportunity to memorize those spells before getting Haste. The fact that you had Invis should have encouraged you to get the spells, since you need no experience to get them online.

[svendre]

In my experience, shoals can just bombard you with too much damage.. even if you get the easier one with vaults. There's a map on the lower level which is wide open, and the minute any noise is made, you're looking at 10 or 15 guys closing in on you from all sides. There are a couple solutions:

1) Massive AC/EV/SH, repel/deflect mitigation, slog through it...consider pulling the whole map and using a scroll of immolation.
2) Well, you're an octopode.... a TM at that, I guess that means big defenses (statue form) and see #1
3) Octopode otherwise, train high stealth. If you have invis, don't use it to run into the center of a big pile, but rather sneak to the edge of the map (yes, you can swim!) From there you need to play sniper and encircle the edge of the map working your way in like you're mowing a lawn. Poison arrow with vehumet is the best spell sniper because of its maximum range and it's quiet. You take an accuracy bonus due to the fact they are sleeping and hopefully you'll kill them in one shot. Basically a long range stabber. Do not expect to be tanking, it's kill/recharge or be killed. In this manner you can whittle the whole level down. Don't open doors or vaults at point blank, use disint on them from a distance so you don't immediately have 7 guys in LOS.

If you can stab the entire level to death without stuff waking up, well, good luck there.
Hexes confuse, etc. might help but the trouble is, you'll spend mana and wake something up which still isn't dead yet... wandering confused enemies in a fully open map will pull more monsters. Moving to close range will open you up as a target, which I don't recommend unless you're tanky (#1), in which case, wtf are you doing casting high spellpower hexes unless shoals should be a cakewalk for you anyhow. I only recommend confuse/tukima as your defense for an open Shoals map if you are an undead mana channeler of Sif Muna so that you actually can confuse a large number of enemies if needed.

[kuniqs]

Shoals tactics:
- Invisibility + flight
- Confuse, Tukima, Meph, Cause Fear
- Fog
- Fireballs
- Killhole if you're lucky
- FLIGHT
- Boots of flight are 7 leagues better than boots of running in Shoals

[dowan]

Boots of flight are nice in shoals, but do the 'waterstrikes' the nymphs do, that seem just like reflavored airstrikes do extra damage to flying characters? I think they do, but I'm not totally sure.

With squishy characters in shoals, I usually hang out on the stairs a lot, do excessive luring, just cheese it up as much as possible. I would have expected invisistabs to make it pretty easy though.

[ZipZipskins]

afaik they do not deal extra damage to flying characters.

I've been wrong before though