Poison Arrow

[stickyfingers]

Good luck one-shotting an orc in a random scale mail with sandblast.

And facing different challenges is not a problem for a background, it's its feature.

[vergil]

And facing different challenges is not a problem for a background, it's its feature.

bug_feature_design_.jpg (53.46 KiB) Viewed 8605 times

Right.

P.s.

Good luck one-shotting an orc in a random scale mail with sandblast.

Orc warrior still tend to smack me for 20 damage with +0 mace ocassionaly. That's why I meant orcs. Simple one. Without power armour enhancements. Also, green and pinky ones.

[Arrhythmia]

Hello yes IE sucks.
Oh why is that?
Well because I don't use the really good spell IE has.
Maybe you should use it then.
Hmm, no, it's because IE sucks.

[HardboiledGargoyle]

I got that it meant to be a school for melee robe dudes that likes tingle themselves with icy fur beasts at night.

Well, glad we got that settled. Now we can go

use that mighty -9 whip of slaying {-99 slay, Butthurt+} and Ozocubu's Miscast Armor for extra glow-flavour!

[Sar]

dudes that likes tingle themselves with icy fur beasts at night

fugg you got me

[genericpseudonym]

i prefer my ice beasts hairless tbh

[CanOfWorms]

Mock me, and laugh at me. Go on.

at your request:

I had to farm S, S, Elf, Vaults 1-4, AND some Depths to be able atleast cast glaciate (with still high failure rate) to deal with those pesky resistant monsters. Which is not that important at 3 rune run, but makes all the difference in extended.

lol

[Sandman25]

how is FE better than IE or even AE

Easily after getting level 3 spells online. Conjure Flame allows to escape, Sticky Flame rules when you enter a new level and find an adjacent Elephant, Fireball allows to kill packs in the open. IE is better on D:1 of course.
Probably I am still a bad AE player, I don't understand how it can be compared to FE/IE.

[Sandman25]

"You don't need defenses/consumables if you're playing smart" is my favorite Crawl meme.

But it's true about defenses. You can skillrobin Fighting to 27 as Tr and kill everything with Apocalypse.

[Sandman25]

By the way fighting an early ogre with IE is a bad idea indeed, FE is better in this case because you can often retreat into a corridor and conjure some flame there. So I believe if some player does not mind restarts on D:1 but dies to ogres often, then FE is better for them indeed.
I rate FE higher than IE too though not because of undead problems, you are not supposed to use level 1 spells vs packs of Wraiths and zombies/skeletons are rare in early D. Also I somewhat understand hating IE, experience in summoning feels wasted. Call it price for easier D:1 and Lair and you will be fine

Edit. It looks like I hate IE indeed, I don't have online wins with it

[Sar]

But it's true about defenses. You can skillrobin Fighting to 27 as Tr and kill everything with Apocalypse.

Well, this depends on whether you consider Fighting a defense or not.

[CanOfWorms]

how is FE better than IE or even AE

Easily after getting level 3 spells online. Conjure Flame allows to escape, Sticky Flame rules when you enter a new level and find an adjacent Elephant, Fireball allows to kill packs in the open. IE is better on D:1 of course.
Probably I am still a bad AE player, I don't understand how it can be compared to FE/IE.

Swiftness is your AE escape spell and Static Discharge is your spell that never misses (and it's ridiculously strong), also you start with Repel Missiles

those three spells alone can carry you through lair

[Shard1697]

Playing as tengu makes lightning bolt fun instead of annoying, since your air/conj apts are so good you can pump it up to get it castable quickly and get high spellpower for great damage with bounces and to mitigate the ungood accuracy. Not as good as FE before that of course, since conjure flame is insanely good(anything that is not easy will walk into the flame after a few turns or so and then die like a chump. honestly would be much more balanced if non-mindless enemies just didn't walk into damage clouds)

[genericpseudonym]

how is FE better than IE or even AE

Easily after getting level 3 spells online. Conjure Flame allows to escape, Sticky Flame rules when you enter a new level and find an adjacent Elephant, Fireball allows to kill packs in the open. IE is better on D:1 of course.
Probably I am still a bad AE player, I don't understand how it can be compared to FE/IE.

Against not-fast things sticky flame is amazing. FE can kill packs of death yaks just by playing ring-around-the-rosie around a large section of wall and stopping to reapply sticky to the leading yak whenever it expires.

[njvack]

conjure flame is insanely good (anything that is not easy will walk into the flame after a few turns or so and then die like a chump. honestly would be much more balanced if non-mindless enemies just didn't walk into damage clouds)

The problem with this would be that it turns cloud spells (including Conjure Flame) into a "block this corridor from almost all threatening monsters in the entire game" and also means you'd want to cast things like freezing/poisonous cloud so they *wouldn't* damage monsters some of the time.

So the current solution of "monster decides if walking in the cloud will do too much damage and charges in if not" is kind of the best compromise.

[Shard1697]

In that case, I don't think the decision should be randomized-enemies of a certain toughness should always go in(and that toughness should be higher than when enemies can go in now), because it's just sorta a waste of time hitting next turn while a yak stands in front of a flame cloud pondering if it should go in(and inevitably always eventually doing so).

[Sandman25]

how is FE better than IE or even AE

Easily after getting level 3 spells online. Conjure Flame allows to escape, Sticky Flame rules when you enter a new level and find an adjacent Elephant, Fireball allows to kill packs in the open. IE is better on D:1 of course.
Probably I am still a bad AE player, I don't understand how it can be compared to FE/IE.

Swiftness is your AE escape spell and Static Discharge is your spell that never misses (and it's ridiculously strong), also you start with Repel Missiles

those three spells alone can carry you through lair

What do you mean? Two of those spells don't deal damage and I think Static Discharge is a bad spell vs Ogre, Hydra and alike.
I still remember how I was having problems when trying to win AE. I lost a huge number of HE/Te. Finally I was told to become an archer as soon as possible and it worked great indeed. Since then I believe AE is the best archer background. Swiftness and RMsl rule in this case, though the game is really tedious and you basically need Oka for ammo and easy switch to ranged attack.

[Shard1697]

Ogre are honestly easily killable with zap, and by the time you are fighting hydra you should have lightning bolt

[Sandman25]

Yes, many of those characters died in Lair when spamming Lightning Bolt. Either to hydra itself or to fast creatures who heard the noise. I was a bad player and didn't lure everything to stairs then.

Not sure about Ogres, HE/Te can be one-shot or two-shot due to HP penalty and low fighting.

[CanOfWorms]

Swiftness is your AE escape spell and Static Discharge is your spell that never misses (and it's ridiculously strong), also you start with Repel Missiles

those three spells alone can carry you through lair

What do you mean? Two of those spells don't deal damage and I think Static Discharge is a bad spell vs Ogre, Hydra and alike.
I still remember how I was having problems when trying to win AE. I lost a huge number of HE/Te. Finally I was told to become an archer as soon as possible and it worked great indeed. Since then I believe AE is the best archer background. Swiftness and RMsl rule in this case, though the game is really tedious and you basically need Oka for ammo and easy switch to ranged attack.

spriggans are one of the best races because of their speed, and AE starts with a spell that lets you get spriggan speed at will. HE/Te is even more ridiculous because they can get everything except lightning bolt online on D:1, so now you're a spriggan without any of the spriggan's downsides

also, because they can get most of their starting book online on D:1 that gives plenty of XP to spend on getting more HP to tank static discharges and spellcasting to cast static discharge more often

lightning bolt is not an amazing spell for lair, I usually don't get it online until after I've cleared lair (and possibly orc) because the xp is better spent on making static discharge better (i.e. more defenses, HP and MP)

[dowan]

Swiftness is your AE escape spell and Static Discharge is your spell that never misses (and it's ridiculously strong), also you start with Repel Missiles

those three spells alone can carry you through lair

What do you mean? Two of those spells don't deal damage and I think Static Discharge is a bad spell vs Ogre, Hydra and alike.
I still remember how I was having problems when trying to win AE. I lost a huge number of HE/Te. Finally I was told to become an archer as soon as possible and it worked great indeed. Since then I believe AE is the best archer background. Swiftness and RMsl rule in this case, though the game is really tedious and you basically need Oka for ammo and easy switch to ranged attack.

spriggans are one of the best races because of their speed, and AE starts with a spell that lets you get spriggan speed at will. HE/Te is even more ridiculous because they can get everything except lightning bolt online on D:1, so now you're a spriggan without any of the spriggan's downsides

also, because they can get most of their starting book online on D:1 that gives plenty of XP to spend on getting more HP to tank static discharges and spellcasting to cast static discharge more often

lightning bolt is not an amazing spell for lair, I usually don't get it online until after I've cleared lair (and possibly orc) because the xp is better spent on making static discharge better (i.e. more defenses, HP and MP)

Well.. if spriggans only moved at spriggan speed half the time, and at naga speed the other half, they wouldn't be nearly as good. Swiftness is good, but spriggan speed it ain't.
AEs are certainly more effective than they first appear, but I'd rank them below FE. Since I'm the authority on crawl background rankings, that means it's official.

[jwoodward48ss]

But it helps.

Also, this is a huge derail?

[WingedEspeon]

People say Freeze is better than Flame Tongue because it does more damage, ignores EV and ignores AC. This kind of matters on D:1 when you have like 3 MP.

It also used to stun enemies which made it even more hilariously OP. It doesn't anymore, but it's still good.

This is Why IE if better than FE. When I play a mage I want to be able to actually 1v1 the first thing I come across on D:1 and win.

On the original point, bolt of draining is probably about as good as poison arrow, and the necro skill you get form getting bolt of draining online should be enough to get dispell undead online. Too bad necro doesn't have any other useful spells, unlike poison...

[WingedEspeon]

"You don't need defenses/consumables if you're playing smart" is my favorite Crawl meme.

But it's true about defenses. You can skillrobin Fighting to 27 as Tr and kill everything with Apocalypse.

It can be true about tactical consumables as well. An optimaly played MiBe should be able to 3 rune with no tactical consumables.

[arandomperson12]

How come multiple forumites seem to have a Xed out bread as their avatar? Are you all in the remove food movement?

[Arrhythmia]

How come multiple forumites seem to have a Xed out bread as their avatar? Are you all in the remove food movement?

Yes.

[Sar]

It can be true about tactical consumables as well. An optimaly played MiBe should be able to 3 rune with no tactical consumables.

Well fuck. I guess I just can't play smart. Can't imagine myself winning like that.

[Sandman25]

also, because they can get most of their starting book online on D:1 that gives plenty of XP to spend on getting more HP to tank static discharges and spellcasting to cast static discharge more often

lightning bolt is not an amazing spell for lair, I usually don't get it online until after I've cleared lair (and possibly orc) because the xp is better spent on making static discharge better (i.e. more defenses, HP and MP)

Ok, I have just played HuAE and now I am sure that Static Discharge is not a good spell. First adder got barely wounded, it took 2 casts to kill a goblin on D2 and I died to first Orc Priest I met from full HP (35) despite I was training nothing but Conj/Air all the way to level 5 (D3) and lured it adjacent to me before casting any spells and casted Static Discharge twice and then 2 shocks while wearing +3 leather (quite lucky). I don't see how the spell can help vs Ogre and alike, it is extremely inefficient MP-wise and its damage is unreliable. I will continue playing AE my way, sorry.

[Sandman25]

It can be true about tactical consumables as well. An optimaly played MiBe should be able to 3 rune with no tactical consumables.

I agree, I almost won SpVM of Kiku who used nothing but spells (died during orb run).

[goodcoolguy]

It can be true about tactical consumables as well. An optimaly played MiBe should be able to 3 rune with no tactical consumables.

Well fuck. I guess I just can't play smart. Can't imagine myself winning like that.

Generally, optimal play is more stupid than smart, in my opinion.

[Shard1697]

...by definition, it is not. Otherwise it would not be optimal. By that same token an "optimal" MiBe uses consumables... it's obviously suboptimal to waste through lack of use.

[Sandman25]

Maybe he meant than player feels stupid when playing optimally. I agree then, why am I spending my real life on manual exploration or retreating before resting?

[dowan]

Don't you know real life is nothing but an opportunity to train your dungeon crawling skill? I thought all us taverners believed in the religion of dungeon crawl, you spend your life learning how to play right and maximize win rate, because the afterlife is a marathon of dungeon crawl, you get to keep existing for as long as you keep winning, but once you die, that's it, no more existence for you.

[goodcoolguy]

...by definition, it is not. Otherwise it would not be optimal. By that same token an "optimal" MiBe uses consumables... it's obviously suboptimal to waste through lack of use.

I suggest you find someone who plays in a highly cautious, "optimal" style and watch. You'll start to realize that they're doing a lot of things other good players don't bother to do because they understand the risks associated with not doing them are small to nonexistent. Playing "optimally" is not the same as being good or smart. Being good or smart means having consistently economical tactics, making good use of the resources available to build your characters, and making clever plays to avoid trouble or get yourself out of it. You play optimally so that it doesn't matter if you're good or smart.

When you do a challenge conduct like no consumables, you're pushed into sweating details that make little or no difference in normal play. You lure and split packs the way people here talk about, but you do it every single time. You rest upstairs or way into explored territory every time. It's not about making amazingly plays all the time, it's about making great plays unnecessary.

[Sar]

That's an interesting point of view.

[jwoodward48ss]

Guys who are talking about non-Poison Arrow stuff stop derailing the derail dammit