What do I do with arcane markman spells?

[Reptisaurus]

Corona: Less useful that throwing a stone, but does get you see invisible that doesn't work against the only REALLY nasty invisible threat because you can't tell where they are.

Slow. I never memorize it on wizards, but it's really not to bad if you got nothing else and are willing to sink some spellpower into it. It'll usually let you kill ogres.

Inner Flame. Kills You.

Grell's Gravitas: Bumps the monsters into each other for .0000000000007 points of damage? From the description I thought it would pull every monster on the screen towards a specific, smite targeted square. But it doesn't do that. Or, as far as I can tell, much of anything.

Cause Fear: An okay spell. Fairly good for breaking up packs, but doesn't seem like it's quite as bang-for-the-buck effective as dazzling spray.

Leda's Liquidification: Oh, I JUST figured this one out from looking at the wiki. It's supposed to combo with flying!

[Arrhythmia]

Leda's Liquidification: Oh, I JUST figured this one out from looking at the wiki. It's supposed to combo with flying!

lmao no it's not, flight and leda's never worked together

[Hellmonk]

You are supposed to set them on fire after you start worshiping Trog.

[Reptisaurus]

Leda's Liquidification: Oh, I JUST figured this one out from looking at the wiki. It's supposed to combo with flying!

lmao no it's not, flight and leda's never worked together

Ok, I don't get it then.

Second Point: OH MY GOD Arcane Marksman sucks sooooo much and I hate it. You should probably just play as a not-as-good hunter, and maybe get slow up to around 50% for spiny frogs and such.

[Siegurt]

Corona: significant accuracy bump, at level 1/2 this can work out to a really large amount more damage n over time, as you get more skill, this becomed decreasing significant, use this on every enemy until you have more important things to do (xl 4-5 or so)

Slow: use this to kite, or effectively give yourself haste either escape or for attacking, it does take some investment to make it useful, but it is good against anything you can stick it on

Ledas: slightly annoying, it decreases movement of things walking through it, doesn't slow attacks, gives you a couple more turns to plink things at range before they close with you if you are standing still, slow the movement of everyone else slightly more than it does you, hence can be used for escape in a pinch, is kind of a crappy slow that bypasses mr and hits multiple things.


Cause fear: lets you regain distance for more plinking, also good for breaking up packs and escape

Gells: a crappier cause fear that bypasses mr

[Malevolent]

Arcane Marksman is a pretty weak background, but you're selling Inner Flame short. It's a pretty poor spell on FE when it has all the other awesome spells as competition, but it's good for an Arcane Marksman who can use it in various creative ways. Slow the first monster coming after you in the corridor and Inner Flame it, then blast it apart with your ranged attacks. Now the other stuff gets damaged and can't follow you either. Or just Inner Flame it and kill it before it reaches you, if you are still far away enough. Once you have rF+ and a decent amount of HPs (50-60 works well IIRC) you can even stand next to the blast and take it in some circumstances. Unlike Conjure Flame, Inner Flame lets you put fire clouds over monsters - and once monsters are in clouds, they will not try particularly hard to leave it, happily burning to death if they can't leave it by moving towards you. I used it a lot on my HEAM (which eventually died because it still sucked by Depths) and it was great for crowd control.

But yeah, one of the problems with Arcane Marksman is simply that it requires all kinds of creative, out-of-the-box thinking to solve various everyday problems that most characters solve just by whacking it with an axe or blasting it away with a conjuration. This is also its greatest advantage, though, if you aren't concerned with power playing and just want something different.

I've no idea if Gell's Gravitas is worth anything at all, but I've never tried it at any decent spellpower level. The one time I tried it, I think it just utterly sucked for me.

[HardboiledGargoyle]

Ledas: ... doesn't slow attacks

O rly? Monsters stumbling their attack doesn't count?

Also, Leda's still lets you blink and Force Lance and use imps and all that, which makes it not just a few extra turns. Spellpower seems to matter quite a bit for it.

[Leszczynek]

I was always wondering - why don't AM have Portal Projectile in their starting books? If there's any spell that makes sense for a "marksman" using "arcane" to have, it's this one. Would it be too good or something? But then Warpers start with it, so that can't be a problem.

[Psieye]

I don't like AM as a starter background, but some of those spells are great for creativity. My preferred use of Inner Flame is with animate skeleton (thank Kiku for corpses): dumb undead don't turn hostile when marked by Inner Flame. Another alternative is to mark them and then zap /enslavement to stop them chasing you.

Gell's Gravitas... I have lost characters to this spell because I put too much EXP into pumping its spellpower. It's pretty fun at high spellpower, but you should be putting that EXP into more important areas. At low power, it's handy when combined with cloud AI. At high power (and MP to repeat cast), it's satisfying to kill the ogre mage by ramming all its 'squadmates' into it. The Royal Jelly will go down to Inner Flame + Gell's Gravitas.

In short, I will happily transition into an AM-style of play but I hate starting as one.

[Shtopit]

Right, how does Gell's Gravitas work with bees? They are fast and come in packs.

[Sandman25]

Corona is excellent spell for conserving ammo and hitting high EV targets.
Slow is my opening spell vs fast monsters like Adder (followed by Corona) and high HP monsters like Ogre.
Ledas is better used when you are standing on upstairs.

[hannobal]

I haven't tried, but i assume slow and/or gravitas should combo nicely with inner flame.

[jwoodward48ss]

Yeah, you have to use Inner Flame carefully. It's not a Conjurations spell, you don't win by spamming zx zx zx zx.

[MrRokkomies]

Inner flame can easily take out a whole pack of orcs with one cast, even when the first warriors come in. Mark the first regular orc you see and pop him from distance. Inner flame might also allow you to take out a priest that is hiding behind some "soon to be living bombs".

(On a side note, my favorite strategy to take out the ending of that one bailey with the circular rooms and a Warlord in the center room is to use ?immolation. It creates more clouds of flame than firestorm )

[Reptisaurus]

My favorite Inner Flame strategy is to cast it on the first orc in the pack and then the frickin' spriggan baker wanders up and blocks the corridor and kills you.

[Hellmonk]

My favorite inner flame strategy is to save 3 spell levels by not memorizing it.

[Reptisaurus]

Yeah, I can see how it would be cool when you pull if off, but if anything goes wrong - several miscasts of attack spells in a row, powerful fast monster coming up behind you - it can kill you really easily.

[HardboiledGargoyle]

well, don't make your escape path run through a corridor? you'd be in the same damn trouble if you just ran out out of MP! what's inner flame got to do with it?

[Shard1697]

Inner Flame on FE seems pretty pointless, not quite as pointless on AM but AM seems to me to be "slow+cause fear, the class".

[dowan]

But you're spending a whole lot of XP on not-killdudes to get slow and cause fear working at a good percentage on actually dangerous monsters. Monsters that would probably be less dangerous if you just trained your killdudes instead. It's not like EN, where your hexes skill directly translates into stabbed dudes.

I play AM as a hunter who starts without a short sword, and early on I'll stick corona and/or slow onto anything I can when I wouldn't rather spend the turn shooting an arrow or something. Inner flame is fun and all, but since it's not smite targeted, and you get no smite targeted abilities, it's a bit tough to make actual use of it. Now... if it were smite targeted, and AM also got PProj, it might actually be a worthwhile combo...

[Sandman25]

Inner Flame is smite targeted in DCSS CA fork, you can try it there to see how it works.

[ololoev]

Inner Flame on FE seems pretty pointless

Why? You innerflame enemy, then block path with conjured flame and then explode everything!
Also you can innerflame say yak and then sticky flame it. When you retreat, first you move, then sticky flame ticks and then yak moves. If Yak die due to sticky flame, it will exlode 2 tiles away from you.

But if you have access to fireball, casting 1 more ball is almost always better than casting inner flame.

[Reptisaurus]

But you're spending a whole lot of XP on not-killdudes to get slow and cause fear working at a good percentage on actually dangerous monsters. Monsters that would probably be less dangerous if you just trained your killdudes instead. It's not like EN, where your hexes skill directly translates into stabbed dudes.

Slow has a really high base effectiveness, so it's % to work against a target is much higher than EH.

Cause Fear, OTOH, does seem to require a disproportianately large investment to get up and going.

[BabyRage]

I just won AM... by going Trog and burning my starting book. So this is what you do with his spells I guess.

[Reptisaurus]

Yeah, that is probably your best strategy.

(Merge Warper + Arcane Marksman, pls.

Do it. Dooooo Iiiiiiiiitttttttt.)

[Hands]

The problem with AM, Sk, Wr is that the starting books don't directly kill things, so you have to train melee or ranged. And if you're killing stuff with melee/ranged the easiest way you can increase your defences is by wearing heavier armour. And wearing heavier armour reduces or removes your ability to cast your spells, so training magic becomes less and less reasonable in terms of cost/benefit as you develop the character along the path of least resistance. What I normally do is develop as if for a non-magic character, but cast whatever spells I have memorised from my starting book for as long as I can and they're useful. Later in the game training magic may become the most cost effective way to get stronger, in which case I'll start training magic. Getting spectral weapon online, for example, as Sk is probably worth your while once you get to the mid-game. Some of the other starting book spells, not so much.

[and into]

Yeah, that is probably your best strategy.

(Merge Warper + Arcane Marksman, pls.

Do it. Dooooo Iiiiiiiiitttttttt.)

I kind of like current AM, but yeah, I could see some bastard child of the two being more fun than either.


Oh yeah, in terms of what to do. Not an expert at AM, but I focus on ranged skill. Stick with corona + slow for a good while, it is strong on first few floors with starting skills. Basically skill as a hunter, but shunt some experience off to Hexes starting around D3 or D4. Aim for about 6 hexes skill by the time you enter the Lair. Use Lair experience to get cause fear online, at the very least. Use and skill for the other hexes if you like them, but only once you are in Lair or ~D10, whichever comes first. (These are all approximations of course.)

It's annoying but in my experience you want to spam corona, it increases avg damage by improving accuracy, which then also helps you conserve ammo. Once you have good accuracy without it and plenty of arrows/bolts/whatev you can ease up on using it.

Based on OP, I'd say the main thing is, start using corona a lot in the first four or five floors of dungeon. And probably use slow more than you have been, too. If you don't do this then yeah, AM is quite a bit worse than a hunter.

[stickyfingers]

Getting spectral weapon online, for example, as Sk is probably worth your while once you get to the mid-game.

Getting spectral weapon online is worth your while once you get to D:3. D:2 if polearms.

[Hands]

Getting spectral weapon online, for example, as Sk is probably worth your while once you get to the mid-game.

Getting spectral weapon online is worth your while once you get to D:3. D:2 if polearms.

Not if you want to win consistently.

[Reptisaurus]

The more I think about it, I'd be all in favor of a "challenge" caster background that starts with relatively-difficult-to-pull-off spells like inner flame.

But I'd like to see (hypothetical challenge caster background) defined as obviously a challenge background, and not start with a bow.

[genericpseudonym]

Inner Flame on FE seems pretty pointless

Why? You innerflame enemy, then block path with conjured flame and then explode everything!
Also you can innerflame say yak and then sticky flame it. When you retreat, first you move, then sticky flame ticks and then yak moves. If Yak die due to sticky flame, it will exlode 2 tiles away from you.

But if you have access to fireball, casting 1 more ball is almost always better than casting inner flame.

When the pack of enemies is on the other side of a conjure flame that they won't cross you've pretty much already won. Inner flame might add some cool fireworks there but it doesn't make the fight any easier than it already was.

[Siegurt]

Inner Flame on FE seems pretty pointless

Why? You innerflame enemy, then block path with conjured flame and then explode everything!
Also you can innerflame say yak and then sticky flame it. When you retreat, first you move, then sticky flame ticks and then yak moves. If Yak die due to sticky flame, it will exlode 2 tiles away from you.

But if you have access to fireball, casting 1 more ball is almost always better than casting inner flame.

When the pack of enemies is on the other side of a conjure flame that they won't cross you've pretty much already won. Inner flame might add some cool fireworks there but it doesn't make the fight any easier than it already was.

Actuallly Inner flame does a lot more damage/mp than any of the other attack spells, letting you use it to take out things that you would run out of MP before killing in some circumstances, optimally, you can kill 4-5 things with the MP with the same MP it would take to kill 2 of them. Once you've got fireball running fairly simply, then it's not *as* efficient, but it can often be used as a way to reduce the total MP you spend on fireballs to do the same job.

Early it does *way* more damage than you can do with throw/conjure flame, it makes harder fights way easier, inner flaming a regular orc, and blowing it up next to a warrior is pretty damn effective. (not to mention a good way to kill the additonal priests/mages that might be nearby too)

I guess if that might not be 'easier' so much as 'requiring less tedium in the form of running away and resting up for more MP' depending on how you look at it.

[dowan]

Inner flame is OK when you have low MR, easy monsters near actually threatening monsters and the situations allows you to stick the inner flame on the weak mob, then kill him with the threatening mob still next to him(So no corridors, AKA where you actually want to fight).

Early on, you might be able to use a conjured flame, but that only works where the threatening monster is still weak enough to not cross the flame, since you need a line to the inner flamed monster.

On top of all that, inner flame is hexes/fire, so it's likely to be about half the strength of a dedicated spell for either AM or FE, and it's got to get past MR. Mana efficiency goes out the window fast if the first one doesn't stick.


So it does have its occasions where it's not completely useless, they are rare, and seem to only be early on in the game. I guess if you have nothing better for those spell slots you can memorize it and maybe a situation will come up where it's useful...

[4Hooves2Appendages]

Getting spectral weapon online, for example, as Sk is probably worth your while once you get to the mid-game.

Getting spectral weapon online is worth your while once you get to D:3. D:2 if polearms.

Not if you want to win consistently.

I agree. Spectral weapon is a good spell, polearms or not, and later in the game can add significant damage. On D:2/3 the XP cost to get castable is far too high though. Getting it with the XP from Lair/S branches is of course good.

[Reptisaurus]

If I remember right, a human skald that memorizes spectral weapon at level 3 starts with a 34% failure rate. This doesn't strike me as "far too high."

[dowan]

It depends on the armor you're wearing as well, if you're wearing lighter armor than you otherwise would that's worth considering.

[Reptisaurus]

Skalds start with leather and, really, you don't want to wear heavier armor for a while because it makes it harder to cast spectral weapon.

[dowan]

Hah, well, that's just it, isn't it? If you're wearing worse armor than you could be, and diverting XP you could be using to improve your defenses/weapon skill, then you're making yourself weaker to get spectral weapon castable. I think generally you don't even want to train anything except your weapon skill for D3.

[Reptisaurus]

Well, yeah, agreed. But you want to use spectral weapon all the time because it's only got a 34% failure rate, and killing everything makes up for not wearing chain mail.

[Sandman25]

Play Op/Dr, you get one less skill to train and you don't need to choose lighter body armour for Spectral Weapon.

[dowan]

Well, I'm going to hold off any further comment until I try a human skald, because your description isn't matching my memory. Yeah, if you can cast spectral weapon without training any charms, hexes, or spellcasting in your starting leather, why wouldn't you cast it? But I don't remember that being possible without a fairly significant investment(for the early game) in spell skills.

[Shard1697]

Yeah, you'll need to train some spell schools to get it castable. Also it's not as strong as it used to be, because as of a bit back it was changed so the spectral weapon doesn't mirror you damage exactly, but does damage based on spellpower(same as you at max spellpower).

[dowan]

Wow, I didn't know that. Probably for the best.

[agentgt]

IMO arcane marksmen is basically a stealth hexer. Don't waste time with the launchers, train sblade and a little stealth. Hex spell books seem to be fairly common in the game. I'm not sure what the weighting is but you just need Confuse, or Dazzling Spray and that will basically take you to vaults (depending on which lair branch you get).

Even then you don't need to find a hex book since there are four or five gods that basically turn non-Enchanter-stabbers into fairly-good-stabbers: Dith, Hepliak, Fedhas, Zin, and sort of Ash and maybe Pakellas depending on what early wands you find... ie confuse.

You can go pretty damn far in the game fairly easy with short blades, some evo, and some stealth. Also Slow is a pretty damn good spell when you are very good at hitting (corona + sblade)... most things early game have 0 AC but high EV.

[dowan]

So.. you're saying arcane marksman is just an enchanter who starts without a dagger, enchanter book, and starts with a bow they shouldn't use?
If you want to use confuse, or dazzling spray, just pick en and you get it.

What you said applies to every single background that isn't EN, the only difference is AM starts with some hex skill, but none of the spells you specified. If that's how AM was intended to be played, it's a terrible background...

[agentgt]

So.. you're saying arcane marksman is just an enchanter who starts without a dagger, enchanter book, and starts with a bow they shouldn't use?
If you want to use confuse, or dazzling spray, just pick en and you get it.

What you said applies to every single background that isn't EN, the only difference is AM starts with some hex skill, but none of the spells you specified. If that's how AM was intended to be played, it's a terrible background...

I did say "IMO". It is a weak background and you can apply it to most backgrounds in crawl. Base play on your species and what is strong if you want to win. I can't really tell people what to do to have fun but I can say what is generally more effective (again my opinion). Gods, hexes, and wands are very strong early. Wands, hexes are sblades are very common early game. Your background has very little correlation to the end of the game. I have turned fighters into AM like dudes and Conjurations experts into fighters.

If you want Role to really dictate your overall play crawl is just not that game... ADOM is though.

The only thing that is really predictable in crawl is gods and you can reliably morph almost any characters into what you want because of them.

[dowan]

Well that's almost the same as saying "Arcane marskmen are meant to be played as berserkers who don't start with trog. You should pick up the first melee weapon you see, wait for a trog altar, then burn your starting book for piety"

This is a valid way to play an arcane marksman, for sure, but there's no way this is the 'intended' way to play it.

[agentgt]

Well that's almost the same as saying "Arcane marskmen are meant to be played as berserkers who don't start with trog. You should pick up the first melee weapon you see, wait for a trog altar, then burn your starting book for piety"

This is a valid way to play an arcane marksman, for sure, but there's no way this is the 'intended' way to play it.

But I'm not... I'm saying do something that it is almost 90% there. The difference between AM and En is hibernation, confuse and a starting sblade.
Playing EN like an AM is a completely valid approach especially if your a spriggan or any race with decent stealth.

D1 is rough for an AM regardless (assuming average species like Hu) but it is certainly a lot easier than running out of ammo and trying to bash the creature with UC. With a little stealth you can mark exclude the adders and dangerous shit, build up your hexes and sblade on easy creatures otherwise your basically saying turn AM into an Archer. IMO melee plus hexes is generally superior to archer for me but many would disagree. I just don't like playing launcher dudes.

My main point though for the OP is that hex spells are possibly the best 3 rune spells in the game and he/she is grossly undervaluing those spells.

[dowan]

The difference between starting with a book with those spells or not is more important than whether you start with 3 hexes skill. You don't generally just find the starting EN book on D1. You're guaranteed to find a trog altar by D9, there's no such guarantee for the EN starting book.

Hexes are quite good in a 3 rune game, at least the disabling ones, I agree with you there.

[agentgt]

Yes but you are far more likely to find the 4-5 gods I mentioned (that give boost stabbing.. oh and I forgot Ru) very early D than Trog. I mean it sounds like your being hypocritical by saying just pick trog or contentious for the sake of it. Of course that is a viable option but you have to get there. And yeah you those 3 hex skills matter when you have jack and dick to start. Corona and Slow will help you kill shit early so you will probably train them particularly since you are not going to waste XP on UC. I suppose you could train launcher but what do you do when it runs out.

Even if you don't find a book ... Slow is good enough for quite some time. Lets not forget there also some species that can get away easy and kick ass at casting hexes. There is also a god that will give you all the hex spells you want... eventually (I refuse to mention it by name because I hate that god).

Even if you pick trog what the hell weapon are you going to use? You need to pick up some weapon and it is probably going to be either a mace or a short blade. Short blades IMO are superior when you have corona, slowing and a fairly good chance you will go stabbing route.

Of course this can all be ignored if you pick some bad ass melee species like a minotaur but I have a feeling if the OP is having trouble with AM they are not picking a strong species.

EDIT

According to the starting screen here are the species recommended for AM:

High Elf, Deep Elf, Kobold, Spriggan, Centaur, Troll


Hmm 4/6 kick ass with Short Blades... (really it should be 4/5 because that Troll is just going to kill shit with its claws). In fact 4/6 of those species are also stealthy. Vp should probably should replace Troll but I guess AM is hard it needs an easy race.