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Uses for Enslavement

PostPosted: Monday, 22nd August 2016, 16:31
by MainiacJoe
I'm splitting this off of the brief Artificer discussion in Sandman's Lamp of Fire thread.

What are various ways that you use enslavement? Here are some of the ways I have used it or can think to use it.

  1. Split Packs: Enslave a brute, tell it to wait or pick a spellcaster for it to beat on. If it dies before enslavement times out all the better.
  2. Retreat: enslave a pursuer, tell it to retreat one way, you retreat another way. Or tell it to wait and clog up a corridor fighting other monsters that were also following you while you run away.
  3. Recruit Ally: retreat from a threat, find another monster to enslave in a nearby part of the floor, and then send it in first against the first threat.
  4. Imp parking: enslave a threat and leave it upstairs.
What else?

Re: Uses for Enslavement

PostPosted: Monday, 22nd August 2016, 17:11
by nago
Well, you could summarize all the uses of enslavement into: when it is better to have an enemy as an ally.
Which, surprisingly is always true - and is one of the reason why enslavement as unlimited spell was utterly broken.

Anyway if you want some specific instance when enslavement is extremely useful:
- ranged threat: when is much better to have an enemy move closer to you and there's no suitable terrain to do that - e.g. early centaur in the open.
- buffer/debuffer. To break some dangerous enemy especially when positioning isn't good - e.g. convoker, deep troll shaman.
- summoner: I don't remember the current behaviour of the summons of a enslaved summoner. Probably you move away while they kill him and abjure themselves.

Re: Uses for Enslavement

PostPosted: Monday, 22nd August 2016, 17:54
by dowan
Well, being able to cast (or evoke in this case) well enough to actually have a chance at beating your foe's MR is very important. Yeah, I'd like to have that iron troll as an ally, but I'd be stupid to spam the wand at him with 3% success chance.

Re: Uses for Enslavement

PostPosted: Monday, 22nd August 2016, 18:32
by MainiacJoe
dowan wrote:Well, being able to cast (or evoke in this case) well enough to actually have a chance at beating your foe's MR is very important. Yeah, I'd like to have that iron troll as an ally, but I'd be stupid to spam the wand at him with 3% success chance.
So an early wand of enslavement (e.g. Artificer or benevolent RNG) does generate the question of how to evaluate the opportunity cost of training Evocations early at the expense of other defenses. Of course it isn't iron trolls that are envisioned as targets; hydras I think make a good substitute with their above average MR.

Re: Uses for Enslavement

PostPosted: Monday, 22nd August 2016, 18:39
by Sandman25
A wand's spell power equals 15+2.5×Evocations, though this is still limited by the spell power caps for the spell cast

http://crawl.chaosforge.org/Wands

Skill points:
  Code:
1  50   10  2,800   19  12,300 
2  150   11  3,450   20  13,950 
3  300   12  4,200   21  15,750 
4  500   13  5,050   22  17,700 
5  750   14  6,000   23  19,800 
6  1,050   15  7,050   24  22,050 
7  1,400   16  8,200   25  24,450 
8  1,800   17  9,450   26  27,000 
9  2,250   18  10,800   27  29,750

http://crawl.chaosforge.org/Skill

http://crawl.chaosforge.org/Aptitude

http://crawl.chaosforge.org/MR#Saving_throws

http://crawl.chaosforge.org/Weapon_Speed

http://crawl.chaosforge.org/Weapon_damage

As you can see, that's easy.
Spoiler: show
sarcasm

Re: Uses for Enslavement

PostPosted: Monday, 22nd August 2016, 20:38
by lethediver
Curious if this applies to anyone else, but i hardly ever use the "strong" hex wands like para or enslave. Confusion does basically the same thing and holds more charges. It has a slightly better success rate too, if im remembering right.

Re: Uses for Enslavement

PostPosted: Monday, 22nd August 2016, 20:43
by Sandman25
I prefer paralysis vs dangerous monsters like Sonja with dagger of chaos/distortion (paralysis lasted up to 100 turns until recent commit), enslavement vs melee brutes like Orc Warrior or Hill Giant, confusion when I am a stabber or the target is near water/lava.

Re: Uses for Enslavement

PostPosted: Monday, 22nd August 2016, 21:06
by Reptisaurus
lethediver wrote:Curious if this applies to anyone else, but i hardly ever use the "strong" hex wands like para or enslave. Confusion does basically the same thing and holds more charges. It has a slightly better success rate too, if im remembering right.


You sure? I really thought confusion/para/enslavement were the same %.

Slow might have a better % - I never use slowing.

Re: Uses for Enslavement

PostPosted: Monday, 22nd August 2016, 23:44
by Shard1697
Confusion and paralyze definitely have the same success rate, I think enslavement does too.

Re: Uses for Enslavement

PostPosted: Tuesday, 23rd August 2016, 13:52
by Lacuenta
Inner flame monster enslave it, send it back to it's friends :D

Re: Uses for Enslavement

PostPosted: Tuesday, 23rd August 2016, 18:32
by moocowmoocow
bdsm roleplaying.