How do you deal with Vault:5 ?

[seren]

I am sure this is obvious for experienced player, but I have a hard time finding a strategy for Vault:5 ? (And the search feature of the forum does not allow to search for Vault)

My experiences so far:

1. A gargoyleEE^Vehu with Shatter : go downstairs, Shatter until everything is dead or out of Mana, go upstaires. Rince and repeat. This was kinda easy/cheesy.

2. A MiBE : for some reason I thought Vault had 6 level so I entered Vault:5 dully unprepared and foolishly decide to stick with it. I managed to escape to a hallway after waking up everyone. But followed by multiple foes and out of consumable I died.

I have read strategies with scroll of immolation but I am fairly pessimistic because it seems to wake up everything.

Basically without Shatter/Firestorm/Glaciate, I am not sure how to deal with that many enemies, with the additional risk of being unable to retreat because of Wardens.

So I tend to believe that the best generic strategy would be to go down and run into a hallway and carefully kill everything from there, but I would like some confirmation.

I also have a question regarding the timing, it seems to be better to complete once you have finished Dephts or maybe even Zot until 4 ?

Edit :
Found more threads thanks to google :

viewtopic.php?f=8&t=8828
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=10909
viewtopic.php?f=5&t=14065
viewtopic.php?f=5&t=13104

Edit:

From reading the previous threads, I picked the following advices:
* don't do Vault:5 before going very deeply in the Dungeon, just before the Orb
* don't do Valut:5, Slime or Abyss might be easier for some build (Tomb for Undeads)
* If you have to do it, it seems the best overall strategy if you don't have an obvious way to kill mass foes, is to retreat to the outer rim, and carefully fight halfway between the corner and the corridor exit. Then clear a quadrant and slowly get back to the stairs.
* (control Teleport was a must but it does not exist anymore) Alternatively you must at least have a way of getting haste, and cBlink to get to the corridor end.

[Malevolent]

There are plenty of decent strategies to deal with Vaults. You have already managed to find one of them (number one) - stairdancing enemies until a vault warden arrives, then quickly repositioning yourself is a pretty good strategy for durable characters. Before entering the level, always use any buffs you have at your disposal - Haste and Agility are some of the most useful ones. If you don't start stairdancing, you can always move quickly out of the ring of vault guards towards one of the corners. This should allow you a bit of a break - if you're lucky, the terrain in the quadrant you've arrived into is good enough so that you can funnel enemies into narrow corridors, kill them one or two at a time and get out of enemy LOS if things go sour. Read a scroll of magic mapping at the earliest opportunity to see if this is the case. If not, just reading a scroll of teleportation works - teleport around until you get to a better location. (I generally prefer to fight within one of the quadrants rather than in the outer ring, where I can always get attacked by quite a few monsters at a time.)

Scrolls of immolation tend to be pretty good at clearing the center. You can always teleport away when the going gets tough. In my experience, Vaults:5 is not terribly hard if your character is somewhat tough and you have a few consumables for emergency situations. With fragile and stealthy characters, Abyss is probably the easiest third rune, and often it's the easiest anyways. Slime is probably a bit tricky if you go into it for the first and second time, and Tomb may be much easier for undead than for other characters, but it's still quite tedious as well as non-trivial. There are a few monsters in Tomb that are explicitly there to make life a pain for the undead, so you should be aware of the threat they pose when you do Tomb.

[ydeve]

Scrolls of immolation tend to be pretty good at clearing the center.

The question to ask yourself is: "Do I really want every single monster in V:$ completely surrounding me in a wide-open area while the staircases are warden-locked?"

Also, if you are using big noisy AoE spells like firestorm and shatter, Slime is easier than V:$.

[Sar]

Shatter isn't very good against slimes IIRC.

[Eyesburn]

for melee/tanky characters: stairdancing until warden shows up(and close the stairs) then reading tele, sometimes ?immo combined with this,
or
stairdancing until screen is clear with 1-2 monsters then just move to the left corridor and start clearing treasure/rune vaults

[ajon]

I try to get to the corridor and clear the outer ring first. Then I start working into the quadrants. It's possible to do even on frail characters as long as you are careful. Running away is always best. Just hit a few monsters at a time. Sometimes you just get bad luck and everything is super tough. Just try to get out and do something else instead.

[Sprucery]

I buff myself on V:4, go downstairs and either just run or blink to a corridor. About midway in the corridor I turn around and fight the initial welcome committee. Then I go to the rim and clear all corridors + kill all the stuff that comes out of the quadrants. Only then I go clear the quadrants.

Unless I'm a Fo, in which case I take a hatch or shaft myself from V:4 (it's fun).

[ZipZipskins]

Well, it IS a level in Crawl, so probably you want to buff up to kill things that are dangerous, fight at a chokepoint, know your surroundings, have an escape plan, and don't attract more attention than is necessary

Don't read immolation for the love of all that is holy and sacred in this beautiful world just don't do that

[Nattefrost]

Don't read immolation for the love of all that is holy and sacred in this beautiful world just don't do that

It is my technique of choice as long as I have rF++, nothing wrong with it, it clears the first circle so quick, then you can stairdance or teleport if stairs are locked. Even better when used with apocalypse/disaster/slouch.

[Sar]

The catch with immo clearing the guard ambush is that the guard ambush is the most harmless part of V:5 and now you've cleared it and alerted every single terrible thing in the quadrants. It's okay if your plan is to tele or skedaddle into a side corridor after or during the explosion, though. It's fun!

[Malevolent]

Yeah, IMO the point of reading Immolation in Vaults is that if you are going to tele or run away from the center anyways, might as well use immolation as a quick way to clear popcorn out of the center beforehand, as well as any real threats mixed in with them.

[ZipZipskins]

which is why I tell people "don't do that"

because until you have a handle on how the noise and vault layouts and monsters and everything else work it's a terrible idea that will get you killed by a golden dragon

[Nattefrost]

The catch with immo clearing the guard ambush is that the guard ambush is the most harmless part of V:5 and now you've cleared it and alerted every single terrible thing in the quadrants. It's okay if your plan is to tele or skedaddle into a side corridor after or during the explosion, though. It's fun!

Thats my go-to tactics, at least the one I find safest, it does attract lots of monsters towards the stairs but then I'm in one of the quadrants and work my way back to the stairs.

[ajon]

Eh. I did it a few times. I prefer to just let sleeping things sleep until I get to them instead of having them all awake and roaming. Much more likely to run from something terrible into something equally terrible when they're all awake.

[genericpseudonym]

Shatter isn't very good against slimes IIRC.

but on the other hand shatter lets you break into the endvault without actually fighting TRJ

[ThreeInvisibleDucks]

With a strong enough melee dude, I prefer taking a hatch down and going from there. Without a hatch, stairdance until stairlock, then blink or tele out, until in a good position. Kill everybody.

With a caster, blink away and ?immolate + Fire Storm the welcoming party dead, then others. Have channeling.

Edit: With a stealthy stabber, I'll take my chances with Abyss instead.

[ajon]

Until all the slimes it generates eat all the shiny treasures in there?

[amaril]

I am surprised so many people advise fighting in the corridors or along the rim. There is almost always better terrain in the quadrants.

[Siegurt]

I am surprised so many people advise fighting in the corridors or along the rim. There is almost always better terrain in the quadrants.

But that's an unknown quantity, you *might* get better terrain in a quadrant, or you might not. You will always know what you're getting along the edge.

Additionally, the edge is further from the quadrants on the other side, (where there are things you could avoid waking up) and as far from the center as you can get (where everything that's going to investigate the inital shouting from your entrance has gone)

It's plausbile you'll get a better position in one of the quadrants, but not *certain* by any means.

[crate]

You should know what the terrain in each quadrant is since you should magic map v:5. There are not many places in crawl that are better to map.

[Siegurt]

You should know what the terrain in each quadrant is since you should magic map v:5. There are not many places in crawl that are better to map.

Well, I usually get between 0 and 5 magic mapping scrolls and I often use one on orc:$ (because I'm paranoid about not getting jumped by high level orcs) which means that yes, in many of my games, using magic mapping is a thing to do, however *getting* to the better-than-edge terrain may involve many many possibly risky jumps (or none, or only one) I'm not sure that burning through teleport scrolls in hopes of getting better position is less risky than just slogging through an edge fight-I-know-I-can-win-but-might-cost-some-consumables, maybe it is, I just haven't found the edge of map fight risky enough to be terribly interested in other plans.

I suppose I rarely go into V5 with a character that's not going to power through an edge-of-map fight with low risk of dying, which may just mean I overprepare.

[Psieye]

The catch with immo clearing the guard ambush is that the guard ambush is the most harmless part of V:5 and now you've cleared it and alerted every single terrible thing in the quadrants. It's okay if your plan is to tele or skedaddle into a side corridor after or during the explosion, though. It's fun!

If you want to have fun, why stop at just a scroll of immolation?
- Worship Maklehb
- Gear up for rF++
- Read Scroll of Immolation
- Read Scroll of Torment
- Get healed back to full after killing one dude
- ???
- Don't die from all the big bads you just woke up

[njvack]

overprepare

good V:5 advice if you ask me

[ZipZipskins]

overprepare

good crawl advice if you ask me

ftfy

[TwoLeggedMammal]

overprepare

good V:5 advice if you ask me

This, I've had pretty good success with V:5 if I first clear Elf, Crypt and Depths, in addition to the other 2 Lair branches.

[Shard1697]

It's easiest as a beoghite. Tell orcs to wait on V4 and then stairdance repeatedly, if a vault warden shows up you smite him to death and then resume stairdancing.

Also, if you are using big noisy AoE spells like firestorm and shatter, Slime is easier than V:$.

Honestly, I think Slime is almost always easier than V5.

[Lasty]

A long time back I was an advocate of stair-dancing. After a while, I became an advocate of "run past guard circle, then use immolation to clear them". More recently, I've learned the value of the advice players like duvessa and crate have been offering for a long time, and the crucial point that I've found is this: you really want to avoid waking up the entire level. If you wake up the level, a very large number of very scary things will be constantly wandering around and finding themselves within earshot of you, and just the noise of routine combat and the shouts of other monsters will draw them in. You can easily find yourself facing an unending swarm.

Immolation is one of the best ways to ensure that you wake up the entire level and end up facing an unending swarm. Stair-dancing tends to do the same, since you make a bunch of noise (combat, shouting) right in the center of the level, in the one place guaranteed to funnel noise to all the quadrants.

By contrast, a random teleport is amazingly safe. Even if you end up near a few scary monsters, unless you use extremely loud spells you probably won't draw much else to your location, which allows you to establish a small safe zone on the level, probably by using the terrain from your quadrant. From there you can start waking smaller groups of monsters, drawing them back, and killing them -- standard crawl tactics.

Mapping is definitely strong here, as it help you quickly establish how to get to the safest location to carve out a safe zone.

[ThreeInvisibleDucks]

A long time back I was an advocate of stair-dancing. After a while, I became an advocate of "run past guard circle, then use immolation to clear them". More recently, I've learned the value of the advice players like duvessa and crate have been offering for a long time, and the crucial point that I've found is this: you really want to avoid waking up the entire level.

If there's no hatch in V:4, I still stairdance with strong enough melee dudes until stairlock because I can't see the downside of it. Often you'll kill most, or all, of the welcoming party in the relative safety of V:4, and after stairlock you'll just blink and/or tele away, which is what you'd do anyway.

The immolation fest is fun but loud, so it has a drawback compared to plain stairdancing, but when you eventually tele away from the center, I don't think it's that much worse. All things considered, just stairdancing is better overall though.

Magic mapping on V:5 is the best use of a scroll, agreed.

[Shard1697]

On a melee dude who I'm doing vault 5 with, I don't care if it becomes an unending swarm as long as I have an option to kill vault wardens(like the smiting I mentioned) because I can just stairdance and kill everything. At that point in the game it doesn't really matter how dangerous the enemies are if I'm fighting them just a few at a time.

[ydeve]

Wardens, constriction, and having multiple hard-hitting enemies right next to you makes stairdancing unreliable.

[ThreeInvisibleDucks]

Wardens, constriction, and having multiple hard-hitting enemies right next to you makes stairdancing unreliable.

True, but usually one has the time for at least one or two stair dances, after which the initial ambush is over, so in a sense they are free kills. After that one would proceed without stairdancing, but with full health and quite a lot of enemies dead.

[njvack]

... or you can blink (or haste-walk) past them and deal with them, well, basically any time later. They're pretty much the least threatening things on the level, so there's really no advantage to fighting them in the middle where they can help wake up other dudes. If you walk away from them, they'll mostly lose track of you and you won't get mobbed anyhow.

I've never had the guts to hatch into V:5, but... maybe I'll try it this time. I feel like stairs + mapping might be safer, but hm.

[Lasty]

Some characters are strong enough that no monsters on Vaults:5 are frightening, and for these characters, stair-dancing can be acceptable, because they are strong enough to withstand an approach that exposes them to more harm and danger. It's still not the right choice for these characters, though; they would still be better off taking a safer approach that doesn't wake up the level and expose them to such a high level of danger.

[ThreeInvisibleDucks]

... or you can blink (or haste-walk) past them and deal with them, well, basically any time later. They're pretty much the least threatening things on the level, so there's really no advantage to fighting them in the middle where they can help wake up other dudes. If you walk away from them, they'll mostly lose track of you and you won't get mobbed anyhow.

I've never had the guts to hatch into V:5, but... maybe I'll try it this time. I feel like stairs + mapping might be safer, but hm.

Taking a hatch is a bit of a gamble, but at worst, I've had to teleport 3 times in a row to get to an acceptable position. Just descending puts you in a bad spot anyway, and teleing away is a way to counter that, so a hatch isn't worse IMO.

[Shard1697]

Wardens, constriction, and having multiple hard-hitting enemies right next to you makes stairdancing unreliable.

Wardens are why I mentioned smiting. And honestly I've never had trouble going back up stairs when a tentacled monstrosity constricts me, takes at most a couple of tries. Probably has to do with playing beefy high-STR melee dudes!

[Badtown]

I typically prefer to dive Vault 5 rather than stairhop, unless I have Shatter or Tornado online somehow. Here's how I do it:

1) Eat to Engorged
2) Buff up. Agility, Haste, you name it.
3) Pop a Tele Scroll
4) Go down the stairs to Vault 5
5) Pop a Magic Mapping scroll immediately
6) (Get teleported)
7) Look for a great position near you, narrow hallways or the checkboard grids are ideal.
8) Be willing to teleport more if you don't like where you are until you get near that position.
9) Fear scrolls can help scatter the beefy chaff away from the dangerous targets that aren't subject to fear.

The threats I dread the most here are, in rough order:

Tentacle Monstrosities - getting constricted can really suck, and is one of the main dangers for repeated stairhopping. I usually stop as soon as I see these guys on screen.
Ancient Liches - make sure you can see invis! They can force teleports from you easily if they summon some nasty friends.
Vault Sentinels - if you have low MR, there's a good chance they will Mark you and you'll have half the floor queued up to attack you. Not necessarily a bad thing if you have a great position
Golden Dragons - if you don't have rPois, they can easily knock out all your health with spammed poison clouds. If you do have rPois, no big deal/they're just beefy dragons.
Shadow Dragons and Orc/Elf mages can be annoying if they get to spam Bolt of Draining on you repeatedly
Storm Dragons/Titans - can be annoying if you're relying on lightning
All the Dragons/Monstrosities/Undead will be annoying if you're relying on poison
Ironbrand Convokers can be annoying in some situations, but not necessarily a bad thing again if you have good positioning

[andreas]

stuff about hatches

What is the functional difference between taking a hatch down and teleporting right off the bat? The only one I see right now is that if you read tele, go down, and map, you have a chance to cancel the tele if you see that you'd rather just walk to a specific quadrant, after all. Is that it?

EDIT: taking a hatch down is less likely to wake up the welcoming party; I guess there's that, too. Hm.