Pakellas

[Sandman25]

Mod edit: split from GDD

Ok, I played MiAr of Pakellas. Powerful, yes, but not invincible. I had to use wand of paralysis about 8 times to kill Vault Guard on D 10 and I couldn't paralyze Orc Warlord in baily even with Device Surge. I am XL 11 and the only rod is one of lightning so while it allowed to kill a hill giant from safety, it is not safe to use normally. Also I almost died to draconian ghost (54 damage from a single bolt of draining) and I didn't have any tools to fight it. Whenever I tried quick charge wand of iceblast, I always got exactly 1 charge, even with max 14 MP and 6.5 Evo so I don't see how you can spam the wand. And now I am not sure what to do with MP, no wands of acid/HW/hasting/teleportation and I don't need more charges on my available wands. So yes, I still believe Pakellas is fine, not stronger than Trog or Fedhas but definitely more decisions than with Trog.

Edit. Pakellas didn't give me any wands of paralysis, I found both. I imagine the game would be even harder without them.

http://crawl.berotato.org/crawl/morgue/ ... dman25.txt

  Code:

Sandman25 the Spear-Bearer (Minotaur Artificer)    Turns: 12103, Time: 01:04:16

Health: 100/100    AC: 18    Str: 16    XL:     11   Next: 71%
Magic:  6/14       EV:  9    Int: 10    God:    Pakellas [******]
Gold:   339        SH:  0    Dex: 18    Spells: 0 memorised, 10 levels left

rFire  . . .      SeeInvis .    a - +2 halberd (flame)
rCold  + . .      Gourm    .    y - +1 plate armour of Atheism {Regen+} (curse)
rNeg   . . .      Faith    .    (shield currently unavailable)
rPois  .          Spirit   .    (helmet restricted)
rElec  .          Dismiss  .    v - +2 cloak
rCorr  .          Reflect  .    (no gloves)
SustAt .          Harm     .    (no boots)
MR     .....      Clarity  +    r - amulet of regeneration
Stlth  ..........               N - ring of the Octopus King {Wiz AC+1 EV+1 Str+1 Int+1 Dex+1}
                                c - ring of protection from cold {rC+, !d}

@: not resistant to hostile enchantments, extremely unstealthy
A: retaliatory headbutt, horns 2, agile 1, clarity, sense surroundings 1
a: Quick Charge, Device Surge, Supercharge, Renounce Religion


You are on level 1 of the Lair of Beasts.
You worship Pakellas.
Pakellas is exalted by your worship.
You are not hungry.

You have visited 2 branches of the dungeon, and seen 12 of its levels.
You have also visited: Bailey.

You have collected 718 gold pieces.
You have spent 379 gold pieces at shops.


Innate Abilities, Weirdness & Mutations

You reflexively headbutt those who attack you in melee.
You have a pair of horns on your head.
You are agile. (Dex +2)
You possess an exceptional clarity of mind.
You passively map a small area around you.


   Skills:
 + Level 10.2 Fighting
   Level 3.5 Short Blades
 * Level 14.6 Polearms
 + Level 7.1 Armour
 + Level 6.7 Dodging
 - Level 0.7 Stealth
 + Level 6.5 Evocations


You have 10 spell levels left.
You don't know any spells.

Inventory:

Hand Weapons
 a - a +2 halberd of flaming (weapon)
   (You took it off a gnoll on level 1 of the Dungeon)
 g - a +0 blowgun
   (You took it off a kobold on level 3 of the Dungeon)
 E - a glaive
   (You took it off Grum on level 9 of the Dungeon)
Missiles
 b - a throwing net {!f=f, !d}
 h - 4 curare-tipped needles
 m - 45 poisoned needles
 K - 6 javelins (quivered)
Armour
 v - a +2 cloak (worn)
   (You found it on level 2 of the Dungeon)
 y - the cursed +1 plate armour of Atheism (worn) {Regen+}
   (You found it on level 10 of the Dungeon)   
   
   It increases your rate of regeneration.
   It has a curse placed upon it.
Rods
 Y - a +4 lightning rod (13/13) {god gift, !a}
   (Pakellas gifted it to you on level 8 of the Dungeon)
Jewellery
 c - a ring of protection from cold (left hand) {rC+, !d}
   (You found it on level 2 of the Dungeon)
 r - an amulet of regeneration (around neck)
   (You found it on level 5 of the Dungeon)
 N - a ring of the Octopus King (right hand) {Wiz AC+1 EV+1 Str+1 Int+1 Dex+1}
   (You took it off a goblin in a bailey)   
   
   [ring of wizardry]
   
   It improves your spell success rate.
   It affects your AC (+1).
   It affects your evasion (+1).
   It affects your strength (+1).
   It affects your intelligence (+1).
   It affects your dexterity (+1).
Wands
 d - a wand of enslavement (20/24)
 j - a wand of enslavement (11/24)
   (You found it on level 8 of the Dungeon)
 z - a wand of slowing (17/48) {god gift}
   (Pakellas gifted it to you on level 4 of the Dungeon)
 B - a wand of lightning (7/15)
   (You found it on level 1 of the Lair of Beasts)
 D - a wand of flame (17/48)
   (You took it off a kobold on level 4 of the Dungeon)
 F - a wand of paralysis (4/24)
   (You found it on level 6 of the Dungeon)
 P - a wand of digging (12/24)
   (You found it on level 7 of the Dungeon)
 Q - a wand of iceblast (5/15) {god gift}
   (Pakellas gifted it to you on level 7 of the Dungeon)
 U - a wand of lightning (5/15)
   (You found it on level 8 of the Dungeon)
 W - a wand of paralysis (16/24)
   (You found it on level 1 of the Lair of Beasts)
 Z - a wand of disintegration (20/24)
   (You found it on level 1 of the Lair of Beasts)
Scrolls
 o - 2 scrolls of fog {!r}
 s - a scroll of fear {!r}
 t - a scroll of teleportation {!r}
 H - a scroll of magic mapping {!r}
 L - 2 scrolls of blinking {!r}
 M - 4 scrolls of remove curse {!r}
 R - 4 scrolls of recharging {!r}
Potions
 e - a golden potion
 i - 2 metallic blue potions
 k - 2 murky inky potions
 l - 2 potions of resistance
 p - 2 potions of might
 u - a coppery potion
 w - 3 potions of haste
 x - 5 potions of curing
 G - 2 potions of heal wounds
 I - a dark potion
 T - 3 potions of brilliance
 V - 4 potions of magic
 X - a bubbling blue potion
Miscellaneous
 C - a phantom mirror {god gift}
 S - a stone of tremors {god gift}
   (Pakellas gifted it to you in a bailey)
Comestibles
 f - 8 bread rations
 n - 11 fruits
 q - a chunk of flesh
 A - 11 royal jellies
 J - 5 meat rations
 O - a slice of pizza

Action                   |  1- 3 |  4- 6 |  7- 9 | 10-12 || total
-------------------------+-------+-------+-------+-------++-------
Melee: Short sword       |    71 |       |       |       ||    71
       Headbutt          |     9 |    14 |    48 |    58 ||   129
       Halberd           |    43 |   123 |   448 |   450 ||  1064
Throw: Javelin           |     2 |     4 |     2 |    11 ||    19
       Tomahawk          |       |       |     6 |    11 ||    17
Invok: Quick Charge      |       |     1 |     3 |     6 ||    10
       Device Surge      |       |       |     4 |     1 ||     5
Evoke: Wand              |     3 |    15 |    39 |    31 ||    88
       Rod               |       |       |       |     9 ||     9
  Use: Scroll            |     1 |     7 |    10 |    10 ||    28
       Potion            |       |       |       |     4 ||     4
 Stab: Sleeping          |     2 |     2 |       |       ||     4
       Confused          |       |       |     1 |       ||     1
       Paralysed         |       |       |    12 |    10 ||    22
  Eat: Chunk             |     2 |     4 |    15 |    16 ||    37
       Royal jelly       |       |     1 |       |       ||     1
Armor: Leather armour    |    37 |    39 |     2 |       ||    78
       Ring mail         |       |       |    23 |       ||    23
       Scale mail        |       |       |    86 |       ||    86
       Plate armour      |       |       |     6 |   130 ||   136
Dodge: Dodged            |    61 |    66 |   137 |   103 ||   367

Skill      XL: |  1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9 10 11 |
---------------+----------------------------------+-----
Short Blades   |  2  3                            |  3.5
Polearms       |        2  4  6  8  9 11 12 13 14 | 14.6
Fighting       |                    3  6  7  9 10 | 10.2
Evocations     |                       3  4  5  6 |  6.5
Armour         |                          3  5  7 |  7.1
Dodging        |                          3  5  6 |  6.7
Stealth        |                                  |  0.7


[Arrhythmia]

yeah i agree pakellas is pretty bad when you play him poorly

[Sandman25]

yeah i agree pakellas is pretty bad when you play him poorly

And by playing well you mean I should have Evocations as my highest skill and rely on what?
Those are the only items which I got from Pakellas

  Code:

z - a wand of slowing (17/48) {god gift}
   (Pakellas gifted it to you on level 4 of the Dungeon)
 Q - a wand of iceblast (5/15) {god gift}
   (Pakellas gifted it to you on level 7 of the Dungeon)
 C - a phantom mirror {god gift}
 S - a stone of tremors {god gift}
   (Pakellas gifted it to you in a bailey)
Y - a +4 lightning rod (13/13) {god gift, !a}
   (Pakellas gifted it to you on level 8 of the Dungeon)


And I used quick surge 3 or 4 times on that wand of iceblast, got 1 charge every time.

Edit. Also a wand of flaming which became empty so I threw it away because I found a new one.

Edit2. It looks like wand of flaming was not gifted by Pakellas, I have just 5 "Received a gift from Pakellas" in the file.

[Arrhythmia]

yeah i agree pakellas is pretty bad when you play him poorly

And by playing well you mean I should have Evocations as my highest skill and rely on what?
Those are the only items which I got from Pakellas

  Code:

z - a wand of slowing (17/48) {god gift}
   (Pakellas gifted it to you on level 4 of the Dungeon)
 Q - a wand of iceblast (5/15) {god gift}
   (Pakellas gifted it to you on level 7 of the Dungeon)
 C - a phantom mirror {god gift}
 S - a stone of tremors {god gift}
   (Pakellas gifted it to you in a bailey)
Y - a +4 lightning rod (13/13) {god gift, !a}
   (Pakellas gifted it to you on level 8 of the Dungeon)


And I used quick surge 3 or 4 times on that wand of iceblast, got 1 charge every time.

Edit. Also a wand of flaming which became empty so I threw it away because I found a new one.

Edit2. It looks like wand of flaming was not gifted by Pakellas, I have just 5 "Received a gift from Pakellas" in the file.

the +8 lightning rod you have (which at present is +4 for some reason, but that should change).

e: the +8 lightning rod will kill everything in lair without a second thought. after that you'll be able to throw all your lair XP into evocations which will make your lightning rod even better at murdering everything while giving you more MP to give you even more infinite charges on wands.

[Sandman25]

the +8 lightning rod you have (which at present is +4 for some reason, but that should change).

That was not a helpful explanation. What did you mean as me playing badly?
I got the rod just 2 floors ago (after baily with Orc Warlord), of course I started training evocations after that. Do you think it is a good idea to spam it on open levels using quick charge/scroll of recharging along the way? Or do you think it is a good idea to supercharge it provided I don't use it much? Actually D10 was quite scary even without noise, I immediately dived into Lair after finding it on D11.

[ydeve]

Whenever I tried quick charge wand of iceblast, I always got exactly 1 charge, even with max 14 MP and 6.5 Evo so I don't see how you can spam the wand.

The first quick charge gives poor charges. The next 3 give 1 charge for almost no mp. If you melee harmless things you can spam it on anything remotely dangerous, at least through Lair.

[Arrhythmia]

the +8 lightning rod you have (which at present is +4 for some reason, but that should change).

That was not a helpful explanation. What did you mean as me playing badly?
I got the rod just 2 floors ago (after baily with Orc Warlord), of course I started training evocations after that. Do you think it is a good idea to spam it on open levels using quick charge/scroll of recharging along the way? Or do you think it is a good idea to supercharge it provided I don't use it much? Actually D10 was quite scary even without noise, I immediately dived into Lair after finding it on D11.

i was wrong about how super-charge works. you should super charge that right now, and yes, spam it constantly. i have no idea why you're pretending like it's a bad item because it's actually insanely good.

[Sandman25]

The first quick charge gives poor charges. The next 3 give 1 charge for almost no mp. If you melee harmless things you can spam it on anything remotely dangerous, at least through Lair.

I am not sure, it looks completely random. I created similar character offline and used wizmode:

  Code:

Your wand of iceblast (2/15) glows for a moment and now has 6 charges.
You feel somewhat more thirsty.
Use which ability? (? or * to list)
Charge which item? (? for menu, Esc to quit)
Your wand of iceblast (6/15) glows for a moment and now has 7 charges.
* * * LOW MAGIC WARNING * * *

I am on 0.18.1, not sure if it was changed in trunk.

i was wrong about how super-charge works. you should super charge that right now, and yes, spam it constantly. i have no idea why you're pretending like it's a bad item because it's actually insanely good.

Ok, I tested +4 lightning rod (15/15) too. Killed 3 Hill Giants in a corridor, then quick recharged 2 zaps, then quick recharged 2 zaps again, then quick charged 0 (zero) zaps, then quick charged 1 zap. Does not look like it is a safe tactics provided Lair can have fast monsters like Blink/Spiny Frogs and Black Mamba and I have just 1 scroll of teleportation.

In case it isn't clear I know I should have used lightning rod vs that Vault Guard but I really wanted to test how many zaps it will take to paralyze it since I was safe thanks to pillar-dancing if needed. The chance was 24% as far as I remember and it took many zaps.

[duvessa]

you were barely using quick charge, sitting on a supercharge instead of using it, and training 5 skills at once for some trogdamned reason, of which evocations is the lowest

it's no wonder that pakellas seems bad if you're doing that

[Sandman25]

you were barely using quick charge, sitting on a supercharge instead of using it, and training 5 skills at once for some trogdamned reason, of which evocations is the lowest

it's no wonder that pakellas seems bad if you're doing that

Did you miss the message where I listed items given by Pakellas and explained why I didn't train Evocations? That's kind of testing game to see how Pakellas works, not to win.
I am sitting on a supercharge for 749 turns because I have used the lighting rod 9 (nine) times, 6 of them just to see how good it is vs pack of yaks.
Training 5 skills at once is not a big deal when you know what you are doing, of course I didn't train 5 skills on D1. You probably overestimate importance of 1 AC/1 EV/1 HP/1 spell power/0.1 aut at this point, having fun is more important and "only tactics matter".

[duvessa]

Testing Pakellas on a character that doesn't train evocations is like testing Elyvilon on a character that doesn't train invocations, or testing axes on a character that doesn't train axes.

[Sandman25]

You missed the point of the character, it is not testing how much Evo I can train to use that wand of slowing which Pakellas gave me. I want to see how good Pakellas is in typical game where I don't have great luck with gifts and pathetic defense/melee.
Or do you test Ely by training Invocations to 27 and nothing else? It's easier to test such things in wizmode by the way as you probably know.

[Sandman25]

Max piety of Pakellas
Evo - success chance of paralysis vs Black Mamba - with device surge
0 - 46% - 62%
6.5 - 60% - 76%
13.0 - 71% - 81%
20 - 78% - 86%
27 - 83% - 88%

10 piety
0 - 46% - 51%
6.5 - 60% - 71%
13.0 - 71% - 78%
20 - 78%
27 - 83%

Why should I train Evo much???

[ydeve]

Are you saying you think 45% to 60% makes no meaningful difference?
Why are you trying to paralyze black mambas when they die to a few iceblasts?

[Arrhythmia]

better question: why aren't you using a +10 lightning rod to kill everything in lair

[Sandman25]

No, I am saying that difference between 76% and 86% is not large enough to encourage training Evocations from 6.5 to 20. Or do you disagree?

MiAr starts with Evo 2.4, I never had Evo 0 in this game.

Now for Orc Warlord I had trouble with (200 piety)
0-15%-27%
6.5-26%-43%
13-36%-51%
20-46%-57%
27-51%-62%

Again difference between Evo 6.5 and Evo 20 is quite low: 43% vs 57%.

Edit. Also I hope now it is clear to everyone that training Evo to 27 for wands is a very bad idea.

[Sandman25]

better question: why aren't you using a +10 lightning rod to kill everything in lair

Maybe because I have just a single rod, it is loud and I have better chance to win using less noisy methods?

[Tiktacy]

Why did you choose black mambas when they have the same MR as pre-lair popcorn enemies like orcish wizards? Not to mention they are weak as shit.

Seriously, more people have died to traps than black mambas.

[Sandman25]

Why did you choose black mambas when they have the same MR as pre-lair popcorn enemies like orcish wizards? Not to mention they are weak as shit.

Seriously, more people have died to traps than black mambas.

Keep reading, there are numbers for Orc Warlord also.

[Sandman25]

What I learned from those numbers is that
1) If people believe there is too much Pak's piety (I agree), they can use surge ability every time when it matters and in this case training Evocations high is not needed
2) which leads to Pak being OP, you can have effective Evocations close to 20 when you trained it to 6.5 only and as we all know Evocations 20 was OP in 0.18 (and is still OP in trunk when you have rods which you will always have with Pak)
3) Pak should be played as normal character with Evo support, not a pure Evo like some players play casters which rush to level 5-6 spells ignoring defenses and weapons

[Sar]

black mambas ... weak as shit

are you fucking crazy

[crate]

If you have like any offense at all you can use Pak to kill pretty much everything dangerous with wands, since as you point out you actually can't really run out of piety. This is even easier since you don't really need to train evo to do it because of device surge, so there's not even an xp cost.

50% chance of enslave or para is pretty good when you can use it on literally everything dangerous as many times as you need.

[Sandman25]

Yes, I agree. The only exceptions were Orc Warlord with crossbow and Draconian Ghost, you cannot afford to spam 40-50% hexes (or lightning rod) when you can die in 2 attacks. Scroll of blinking is a must for the attempts in this case.

[Tiktacy]

black mambas ... weak as shit

are you fucking crazy

They are about on par with a hasted orc warrior, probably weaker. That's pretty weak if you ask me.

[Sar]

they're faster than a hasted orc warrior (I like how you said it like it's a common occurence), have more HP, HD (better accuracy), more EV, nasty poison

they're probably the most dangerous common enemy in Lair (maybe rime drakes are more dangerous)

[MainiacJoe]

Pakellas gave me a lightning rod in my one game, and I didn't supercharge it because the first blast costs 2 MP and the next three 5 MP, so 18 vs 17 didn't do me any good. It would have given me an extra 1 MP blast I could spend the aut better some other way. Lightinig Rod also doesn't play well with Device Surge because the fan blasts have to occur consecutively. If you try to surge the rod after the initial 2 MP blast to get a boosted 5MP blast, you get a boosted 2MP blast instead because you took the action in between. At least I think so, and I used the rod assuming this. Still hella strong, if a bit noisy.

[Tiktacy]

they're faster than a hasted orc warrior (I like how you said it like it's a common occurence), have more HP, HD (better accuracy), more EV, nasty poison

they're probably the most dangerous common enemy in Lair (maybe rime drakes are more dangerous)

My point was that a hasted orc warrior isn't that scary. But I see what you are saying.

I guess I've never had a problem with them. Maybe that speaks more towards the kinds of characters I play rather than their actual difficulty though.

[crate]

Hasted orc warrior would be terrifying, but they actually are not a monster that generates. That would be a monster that is much stronger than a killer bee, which is a monster that already causes lots of players problems (because they are dangerous). If you generated hasted orc warriors at the same depth as actual orc warriors currently generate, that would probably be the most dangerous monster in crawl unless you are a spriggan.

Spiny frogs and black mambas are the two most dangerous enemies in lair.

[Azarkon]

I'd say hydras are for melee.

[crate]

Hydras should very rarely actually kill you if your goal is to win, unless you are a naga or worship chei. Just don't get next to them.

[amalloy]

Pakellas gave me a lightning rod in my one game, and I didn't supercharge it because the first blast costs 2 MP and the next three 5 MP, so 18 vs 17 didn't do me any good. It would have given me an extra 1 MP blast I could spend the aut better some other way. Lightinig Rod also doesn't play well with Device Surge because the fan blasts have to occur consecutively. If you try to surge the rod after the initial 2 MP blast to get a boosted 5MP blast, you get a boosted 2MP blast instead because you took the action in between. At least I think so, and I used the rod assuming this. Still hella strong, if a bit noisy.

Device Surge, as it says in the ability description, is Instant. It does not consume a turn.

[Sandman25]

Interestingly the success chance for surge on wand of paralysis depends on current MP. I noticed it when found that chance to paralyze Shocking Serpent was unusually low when I had just 1 MP so I tested it in wizmode.

  Code:

Aim: a black mamba (chance to defeat MR: 83%)
The mana viper bites you.
You feel your power leaking away.
...
Aim: a black mamba (paralysed, chance to defeat MR: 81%)
...
The mana viper closely misses you. The mana viper bites you!!
You feel your power leaking away.
...
Aim: a black mamba (paralysed, chance to defeat MR: 79%)

That means those potions of magic are tactically useful in fight even if you don't need quick recharge.

[Sandman25]

More feedback about Pakellas. It is quite powerful early game but in Vaults and Snake it is not that great. For example, I almost died to Jory (66 damage despite 32 AC/EV 20 is not fun), had to use last scroll of blinking (I was hasted/mighted of course, but didn't use agility because trove wants potions of agility) while with Trog/Oka I suspect I would kill it easily.
I know you believe Pakellas is OP because it gives charges but it stops being useful if you are unlucky with drops.
I still don't have wand of hasting/teleportation/acid and despite I do have +10 lightning rod and +9 rod of ignition (apported it from demon statue despite 0 spellcasting/translocations and enchanted), they are too weak vs single Jory (8% paralysis without surge, I didn't even bother to check the chance with surge, used lightning rod until it was empty but Jory was still above half HP) or multiple groups which often happens in Vaults/Snake 4.
The game is quite bad item-wise, ring of protection from fire and ring of fire are still unknown, I had to buy +0 boots (no other boots found so far) and I am consistently marked when I forget to equip second ring of protection from magic.

  Code:

Health: 185/185    AC: 32    Str: 18    XL:     19   Next: 35%
Magic:  27/27      EV: 20    Int:  9    God:    Pakellas [******]
Gold:   243        SH:  0    Dex: 19    Spells: 2 memorised, 16 levels left

rFire  . . .      SeeInvis .    a - +3 glaive (venom)
rCold  . . .      Gourm    .    U - +5 plate armour {MR+}
rNeg   . . .      Faith    .    (shield currently unavailable)
rPois  +          Spirit   .    K - +2 hat
rElec  .          Dismiss  .    u - +2 cloak
rCorr  .          Reflect  .    N - +1 pair of gloves
SustAt .          Harm     .    z - +0 pair of boots
MR     +++..      Clarity  +    r - amulet of regeneration
Stlth  ..........               D - ring of protection from magic {MR+, !d =R}
                                e - +5 ring of evasion

@: extremely resistant to hostile enchantments, extremely unstealthy
A: retaliatory headbutt, horns 2, agile 1, clarity, sense surroundings 1, poison
resistance
a: Quick Charge, Device Surge, Renounce Religion
}: 1/15 runes: serpentine


You are on level 2 of the Vaults.
You worship Pakellas.
Pakellas is exalted by your worship.
You are not hungry.

You have visited 5 branches of the dungeon, and seen 31 of its levels.
You have also visited: Bailey and Ice Cave.

You have collected 3154 gold pieces.
You have spent 2911 gold pieces at shops.


Innate Abilities, Weirdness & Mutations

You reflexively headbutt those who attack you in melee.
You have a pair of horns on your head.
You are agile. (Dex +2)
You possess an exceptional clarity of mind.
You passively map a small area around you.
Your system is resistant to poisons.


   Skills:
 - Level 20.2 Fighting
   Level 3.5 Short Blades
 + Level 21.3 Polearms
 - Level 16.3 Armour
 - Level 15.2 Dodging
 - Level 0.7 Stealth
 - Level 12.6 Evocations


http://crawl.berotato.org/crawl/morgue/ ... dman25.txt

[TonberryJam]

The last gamed I played I had 10 wands of iceblast before depths. 10 bloody wands of iceblast... I like variety in my wands, and not so much randomness from them.

[Sprucery]

didn't use agility because trove wants potions of agility

Oh my, I'm expecting more of you :)

[Sandman25]

Oh my, I'm expecting more of you

Why? It's AC-based character, EV 27 wouldn't help much comparing to EV 20 but troves are fun. Also you can treat it like I saved the agility for OoF or Fire Giant provided I don't have rF+ yet

[Sar]

I feel like you are exaggerating your plight a bit, Pakellas ain't no Trog but your character is a pretty straightforward melee Minotaur, this can't be that bad for someone who used to streak Cheimummies for fun! You lack /hasting, but I'd say infinite /heal wounds isn't too terrible either.

Any reason you trained your Polearms well over 20 while using a glaive?

[Sandman25]

I feel like you are exaggerating your plight a bit, Pakellas ain't no Trog but your character is a pretty straightforward melee Minotaur, this can't be that bad for someone who used to streak Cheimummies for fun! You lack /hasting, but I'd say infinite /heal wounds isn't too terrible either.

Any reason you trained your Polearms well over 20 while using a glaive?

Minotaur is best with Trog, as I mentioned before I am marked often despite wearing 2 MR items all the time, even with 3 MR items the chance to be marked is about 11% as far as I remember.
I want the trove because I lack good armour/jewelry/misc and weapon can be upgraded/branded with scroll of brand weapon

There is +1 bardiche of venom on Vaults 2, you can see it in annotations. By the way I had Polearms 20 during long time but fsim tests showed that +3 halberd of flaming deals more damage than +1 glaive to stone giant so I used the former a long time.

More comments about Pakellas.
After getting wand of disintegration and digging I felt like I am playing a better version of Formicid because I could create kill holes everywhere I wanted but still blink/teleport if in danger. So probably Polearm is suboptimal, for the same reason I didn't use Axes despite battleaxe is close to mean delay without any training. Another reason why polearm is suboptimal is that reaching is not used as often as it could be because it is often better to keep evoking lightning rod when the monster is 1 tile away. I guess Long Blades or M&F might be better, hydra for Long Blades is not an issue because I killed many of them without any melee.
Also having unlimited kill holes means I might be better with a shield, actually I found +0 demon trident of draining early but fsim showed that my other weapon which I used during that time (+3 halberd of flaming) was about 20% better so I didn't bother to switch since I already had nice defenses.
I like Pakellas much more than Nemelex because of inventory issue, with Pakellas I can use a single copy of every wand type and recharge them as needed, no stashing required. Though interface for surge is not great indeed, I am too lazy to use surge before every evocation of lightning rod. Though inventory is still an issue, I think dropping phantom mirror was a mistake, it could be very good vs Jory with surge.

[duvessa]

Any reason you trained your Polearms well over 20 while using a glaive?

gotta avoid training evocations

[Sandman25]

Any reason you trained your Polearms well over 20 while using a glaive?

gotta avoid training evocations

I am not sure why you wrote it, I believe you know that using bardiche with polearms 21 is a bad idea, especially when you have +3 glaive and +1 bardiche.
Also yes, I cannot rely on Evocations because I don't have rod of cloud nor rF+ for using rod of ignition at point blank so I believe bardiche will help me more than more Evocations.

[duvessa]

Dude you have Pakellas, you don't need rods for evocations to be OP, you can just spam iceblast and paralysis and enslavement, this is what people have been telling you for the whole thread

Your objective with this character seems to be "prove Pakellas isn't good", but you're not going to convince anyone of that if you deliberately avoid actually using Pakellas' abilities to their full effect.

[Sandman25]

Dude you have Pakellas, you don't need rods for evocations to be OP, you can just spam iceblast and paralysis and enslavement, this is what people have been telling you for the whole thread

Oh, you opened my eyes, thanks a lot.

Spoiler: show

  Code:

Invok: Quick Charge      |       |     1 |     3 |    11 |    17 |    21 |       ||    53
       Device Surge      |       |       |     4 |     1 |     3 |    16 |     1 ||    25
       Supercharge       |       |       |       |     1 |       |       |       ||     1
Evoke: Wand              |     3 |    15 |    39 |    37 |    25 |    34 |     5 ||   158
       Rod               |       |       |       |    27 |   104 |    86 |    10 ||   227
Stab
       Paralysed         |       |       |    12 |    10 |     4 |    20 |       ||    46

Edit. I will run more wizmode tests tonight. I got strong impression that wand of iceblast is overestimated.

[ydeve]

Mid-game ranged AOE attack with decent damage and only needing to train one skill for a plethora of other effects as well is overestimated? Who cares if it does less damage against a single target than another ranged attack? It's AOE and you can spam it against anything dangerous...

[Sar]

Well, it's a question of opportunity costs, is it not? If the dangerous thing is melee-only and isn't in melee, then yeah, it might make sense spamming it. Otherwise, you might want to do something else, like moving or attacking in melee.

[Sandman25]

Ok, ran some tests. With Evo 12.6 and max piety of Pak it takes 3 charges of Ice Blast to kill a Deep Troll (tried several times), with Surge for every charge it takes 3 charges again (tried once). With Evo 20 it takes 2-4 charges, with Surge it takes 2-3 charges.
So no, I am not going to train more Evo.

Tried tests vs Jory, it looks like I missed something, the chance to paralyse it is always 0%, no matter if Surge or not. MR 160 is just too much.

Vs Fire Giant (I am scared of it since I don't have rF+) who has MR 80, chance to paralyze:
Evo 12.6: 21% without surge, 33% with surge and 27 max/current MP.
Evo 20: 28% without surge, 39% with surge and 32 max/current MP.
Evo 27: 34% without surge, 44% with surge and 35 max/current MP
So again, no, I am not going to train Evo that high, I don't see much difference between Evo 12.6 and Evo 20, it's much more important not to be lazy with surge.

Edit. Also I learned that wand of acid does damage similar to wand of iceblast, 3 charges for Deep Troll. So I don't need the wand except for rC+ monsters.

Edit2. +3 glaive with 21.2 polearms is worse than wand of iceblast vs Deep Troll (it has 36-74 HP)

  Code:

           AvHitDam | MaxDam | Accuracy | AvDam | AvTime | AvSpeed | AvEffDam
Attacking:     16.4 |     54 |      72% |  11.8 |    70  |  1.43 |     16.9

+1 bardiche with 26 polearms is about the same as the wand:

  Code:

           AvHitDam | MaxDam | Accuracy | AvDam | AvTime | AvSpeed | AvEffDam
Attacking:     19.7 |     71 |      70% |  13.9 |    70  |  1.43 |     19.9

[Sandman25]

Or maybe I underestimate wand of iceblast, one-shoting Water Nymph without surge is quite nice at Evo 12.6.

[tasonir]

So I've only played one pak character, a merfolk gladiator who died in zot, but it did seem to taper off in power around the 2-3 rune point. Pak's really strong early, but eventually a wand of ice blast isn't really clearing vaults:5/zot. Maybe I screwed something up but pak never gifted me any rod (I thought you always got one?), although I did later find and supercharge an iron rod. Not my favorite rod, but it was the only rod I had, so hey. I definitely abused a ton of spamming heal wounds/haste like it was going out of style, but both of those wands were lucky floor drops, pak didn't give them to me. Overall I'd say it's a strong early/mid god but not terribly good for the late game. If you have a really good rod (lightning? Clouds? Haven't tested), then maybe pak is still good late? Overall I'd say the power level is fine; again, I've only played one pak game.

[DracheReborn]

Edit2. +3 glaive with 21.2 polearms is worse than wand of iceblast vs Deep Troll (it has 36-74 HP)

  Code:

           AvHitDam | MaxDam | Accuracy | AvDam | AvTime | AvSpeed | AvEffDam
Attacking:     16.4 |     54 |      72% |  11.8 |    70  |  1.43 |     16.9

+1 bardiche with 26 polearms is about the same as the wand:

  Code:

           AvHitDam | MaxDam | Accuracy | AvDam | AvTime | AvSpeed | AvEffDam
Attacking:     19.7 |     71 |      70% |  13.9 |    70  |  1.43 |     19.9

A ranged AOE weapon doing comparable damage to melee seems pretty good

If it's not too much trouble I guess I would be interested in what the numbers look like for an equivalently skilled conjurator or longbow/xbow user.

tasonir: for late game I guess you could switch to weapon? You must have a lot of excess XP from only having to train Evo.

[Sandman25]

Conjurations deal comparable damage too. It's hard to do exact tests since both monster HP and damage rolls are random.

Late game Pakellas is almost useless when you don't have wand of tele/hasting. I still create kill holes whenever I need and that's all. I am not complaining though, +6 vampiric lajatang, +4 bardiche of chopping and +3 battleaxe of electro together with AC 40/EV 36 are good enough

[Sandman25]

So here is my summary. Pakellas is extremely drop-dependent god. As I wrote earlier it gave me just 5 gifts, the only good one of them was rod of lightning. It means that for some characters it is very weak god all game and for others it can be extremely powerful all game (unlimited hasting, healing, teleportation, killholing, enslavement, paralysis, iceblast, acid). I believe it is a serious design problem. So I suggest to change those 5-6 gifts to always give one rod, one wand of (haste/heal/tele), one wand of (enslavement, paralysis), one wand of (iceblast/acid), one of (fan/lamp/phial) and one misc item (box, sack, mirror).


More anecdotes: surged iceblast kills shining eye with 1-2 charges at Evo 15, iron giant laughs at paralysis, iceblast, acid and anything else you can evoke (including wand of digging/disintegration, it will happily throw you out of the killhole), enslavement looks nice on paper but when you spend 3 turns trying to enslave deep troll in the open with surged 70% chance you quickly realize that using battleaxe 4 times might be better.