The Tavern

I'm comfortable that my current character can get to Zot:5, but I'm not feeling good about Orbs of Fire.

I've never been to a Zigguraut before. Is it reasonable to go in with a plan just to clear a few levels for loot and then bail out when "a harder floor than this one" no longer feels ok? Or should I not be going in in the first place unless I can already handle harder content than pre-chamber Zot:5?

If you don't think that you can handle OOFs after collecting 3 runes, you'd be better off clearing Crypt and Elf instead of trying to dip a Zig for loot.

Shallow Zig floors are typically not very threatening, but there is always a chance of rolling a dangerous monsterset. It is easy to run into trouble there if you don't bring a decent character, preferably one with a method of dealing AoE damage.

Certainly clear other vaults (defintely elf3 and crypt3 at least, maybe even tomb ) before a zig. The higher up floors of zigs basically throw a lot of guys at you with little option to fight them one v one. Whereas while tomb is hard you can at least single pull greater mummies with the right tactics. But the first few floors of a zig are not that many guys like 4-5 on a floor.

Clearing floors up to 5 is certainly easily doable on a strong melee character. Up to 10 on a very strong melee character, but you will probably want a decent AOE option by 8 or so and you could get to 15.

The key thing is you basically want at least 2 scrolls of blink so that when you reach a floor you have to bail out of you can blink twice and leave before you die. When you need to bail really depends on the floor type and your character.

Going through , for example, 10 floors of a Zig is generally very much worth it if you are doing 3 or 5 runes. You will almost certainly get a few artifact rings and a few other artifacts some useful scrolls and a good amount of experience.

In my last run I found a Zig in the depths and after clearing most stuff (like Zot 1-4) I decided to do it knowing that my AOE options were too weak for zig:27. This was on a low int but high Str Op transmuter. I had Shatter castable at 10% but low spell power. I made it to floor 13 or 15. I could reliably melee pretty strongly and I cleared some fairly large merfolk floors using shatter, but I had to bail on a level that had literally like 10 or more ice fiends. There was no way I could deal with that much torment even in statue form and the fiends are flying so shatter is very weak against them. If I had lich form I could have meleed them all, if I had fire storm and was mahkleb I could have simply killed em all. So I bailed by using 2 scrolls of blink which is right around what I expected and overall it was worth the haul. If Iwanted to seriously run zigs later on there was still the tomb zig (which I never used anyway).

If you run into a floor that is one of these: mummy floor, pan lord floor, demon floor with a lot of fiend-class. Then most chracters without certain tools will probably need to bail out quickly. Depending on your tools/supplies this can mean going to next floor or leaving. So the biggest question is can you get out? Basically you zone in and you need to get to the other side of the room to escape a bad floor.

Scrolls of holy word are strong in those early zigs, since most anything that is likely to be a serious threat is going to be vulnerable to them. haste --> immo --> holy word --> holy word = everything dies

Or blink and bail, like the guy said.

How reasonable would it be to get to the other side of an unfavorable floor in Zig 1-10 with Stealth ++++++..., movement delay 9, and LOS minus three?

(We have Robe of Night stacking with Darkness spell, which -- while awesome -- I don't imagine is enough to stealth the Orb.)

I dip into the first few levels of a zig almost every game, usually do 4-5 levels. If there's a bad one, just make sure you have one blinking scroll. That's enough to blink to the stairs and get out if need be. And the loot you get will almost always be worth the one scroll, especially if you have extras.

I'd add abyss floor, and fiery floors can contain OoFs even on level 1. Elf floors can quickly become demon floors, too. And even orc floors can have juggernauts + moths of wrath, this is a terrible combination.

Thanks for the guidance all. I cleared Elf and then did 5 floors of a Zig. First impact to my health was a spider-themed floor on 5 which took off 1/4, after which I bailed. I know enough not to play Press Your Luck right to the edge.

Picked up a Potion of Experience and got the second tier of my "Augmentation" Ds mutation online, so it paid off reasonably.

I think you can get a single OOF or a single pan lord on the first floor of zig.