UC Troll vs Hydra


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Dungeon Dilettante

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Post Tuesday, 20th December 2016, 02:08

UC Troll vs Hydra

I like playing UC trolls but Hydras present a problem; most of my troll deaths are from hydras. I have a few ways of dealing with them, as a UC troll, but I would like to hear other people's advice on which might be better, or new ideas. I normally pick Okawaru as a god.

1) Run away. This only works for so long, especially if the swamp appears rather than the shoals.
2) Throw stuff at them. This works better later on once you have some throwing skill, but you have to kill them before you get into melee range I find because low ac+low dodging means death short number of turns.
3)Evocables: Another ranged option besides throwing.
4) melee with untrained weapon. Okawaru's heroism + bladed flaming weapon or blunt weapon means this can work with a high level character I find.
5) God Powers. Elyvilon and Mahkleb, especially Elyvilon, make hydras trivial. Brothers in arms from Trog works too, as well as berserk. Of course, this means picking another god over okawaru.

Slime Squisher

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Post Tuesday, 20th December 2016, 02:25

Re: UC Troll vs Hydra

Throw large rocks if any have generated above D:11 in your game.
Throw (steel/) javelins if any have generated in your game.
Throw nets if you have them.
Zap wands of iceblast, confusion, paralysis if they exist in your game.
Pick up a bladed weapon of flaming and use it while under heroism/finesse if one exists in your game. Scimitars of flaming from efreet are the usual source for one of these, you can sometimes also pick one up from Erica if you feel that killing her is a safe thing to do in that game. If you are playing in a current version you can see in your combat log if a random orc is wielding a weapon of flaming when it comes into view, so you don't have to muck around with trying to wield-id just for a hydra weapon.
Use BiA if you are playing with Trog. Use other god abilities as appropriate. Ally powers and ranged damage powers are good tools here.
Read a scroll of summoning if it exists and you have it identified.
Evoke a rod of shadows if it exists in your game.
Use an enchanted missile launcher if you care to invest in a ranged weapon skill. UC trolls have little use for ?enchant weapon scrolls aside from blowguns, launchers, and flaming bladed weapons. Enchanted slings of freezing with sling bullets are surprisingly good at this.
Setup exclusions by pressing X e if you have a little bit of stealth and spot one that's sleeping. (This happens more often than you'd think with Trolls, since their equipped body armour penalties are usually low to nonexistent.)
Barring any of the above, you can always read an escape scroll. You should really never allow a hydra encounter to get to the point where you have to read, though.

Most importantly, remember that hydras move at speed 10 while not in water and walking away from things is effectively the same as killing them in DCSS. There are six staircases on every floor not counting hatches and branch entrance chokepoints, use them when it's appropriate.

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Shoals Surfer

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Post Tuesday, 20th December 2016, 03:08

Re: UC Troll vs Hydra

If you're with Oka, you can just cast hero, which gives you +5 throwing in addition to other stuff, and throw rocks/javelins at it, which is fairly effective. if it's in melee range, it's a speed 10 monster so it can't really hurt you when you're running away, so just run around a pillar until it lags behind and go up a staircase.

The main danger is hydras in conjunction with other threats,like spiny frogs or black mambas,as that can neuter this strategy, so to minimise danger, lure threats to cleared areas and keep staircases near in case you need to bail. I would recommend starting Troll Hunter to have guaranteed large rocks.
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Shoals Surfer

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Post Tuesday, 20th December 2016, 05:52

Re: UC Troll vs Hydra

Throw rocks.

Evoke shit.

Pray really hard and your god will help, unless its dith/chei, then just throw rocks really really hard.
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Zot Zealot

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Post Tuesday, 20th December 2016, 13:15

Vajrapani wrote:I would recommend starting Troll Hunter to have guaranteed large rocks.

Throwing rocks is a special power of Tr/Og and quite strong. As TrHu you have some emergency rocks which usually will do the job.

lokibrotherofthor wrote:This works better later on once you have some throwing skill

Early skill levels are always cheap so I'd look for some throwing skill in early game as well.

If you don't start as Hu there are other ways to get rocks:

  • as ammo gifts from Oka or Trog
  • sometimes you'll just find some on the floor
  • in deeper dungeon cyclopes will throw rocks at you. Going there is a bit risky, unseen horrors or centaur warriors e.g. can be a problem. But if you succeed you'll get rocks for lair. I sometimes did it this way.
Shoals will give you lots of javelins (and probably rocks as well) but when your char is strong enough to do shoals then hydras shouldn't be a problem anyway.

Tartarus Sorceror

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Post Tuesday, 20th December 2016, 13:40

Re: UC Troll vs Hydra

Does lignification meld your claws? If so, then you won't be multiplying heads, and treeform has even higher UC damage than Claws 3 anyway, right? Plus bonus AC.
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Mines Malingerer

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Post Tuesday, 20th December 2016, 19:50

Re: UC Troll vs Hydra

potion of berserk rage is good enough usually, even potion of might if you are unarmed focused troll
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Shoals Surfer

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Post Wednesday, 21st December 2016, 19:12

Re: UC Troll vs Hydra

MainiacJoe wrote:Does lignification meld your claws? If so, then you won't be multiplying heads, and treeform has even higher UC damage than Claws 3 anyway, right? Plus bonus AC.


no, it doesn't meld your claws. neither does statue form, for that matter.

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MainiacJoe

Spider Stomper

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Post Wednesday, 21st December 2016, 19:16

Re: UC Troll vs Hydra

removeelyvilon wrote:
MainiacJoe wrote:Does lignification meld your claws? If so, then you won't be multiplying heads, and treeform has even higher UC damage than Claws 3 anyway, right? Plus bonus AC.


no, it doesn't meld your claws. neither does statue form, for that matter.


Blade hands does though .... oh wait
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Zot Zealot

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Post Wednesday, 21st December 2016, 19:24

removeelyvilon wrote:no, [lignification] doesn't meld your claws. neither does statue form, for that matter.

In statue form your troll will have something like 30 - 35 AC which is more than enough to deal with a hydra. With decent UC you'll just tear the 4-headed 5-headed 6-headed 7-headed hydra into pieces.

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Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Friday, 23rd December 2016, 06:29

Re: UC Troll vs Hydra

yeah i always get level 6 spells before lair on trolls

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Slime Squisher

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Post Friday, 23rd December 2016, 10:33

Re: UC Troll vs Hydra

1. Potions of lignification
2. Tomahawks/Javelins
3. Wands of acid/lightning
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dracos369

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Post Friday, 23rd December 2016, 14:09

Re: UC Troll vs Hydra

So as usual with basically all hydras in lair you can lead them around by the noses and avoid them, and decent ranged damage options you have work great. Once you get to Swamp if it generates you'll almost certainly have a solid contingency plan to deal with them more directly.

Swamp Slogger

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Post Thursday, 29th December 2016, 18:17

Re: UC Troll vs Hydra

If you can get even a couple of hits in before they reach melee, there's a pretty good chance you'll just strait-up outdamage them by ripping & tearing. Particularly with Heroism+Finesse.

Works better with smaller head-counts, tbf

Slime Squisher

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Post Thursday, 29th December 2016, 19:14

Re: UC Troll vs Hydra

For what it's worth, the reason I didn't mention most "buff and tear" tactics above is that trying to play that way will get your characters killed. You'll roll poorly, your buffs will run out earlier than you expected, the noise from your fighting will attract a pack of blink frogs dream sheep, and suddenly you'll find yourself standing adjacent to a 15-headed hydra with no ?blink, wondering where it all went wrong. (It went wrong when you started taking advice from tavern posts.)

Once you're intimately familiar with the game, is it possible to do that kind of thing safely? Sure.

Should you be rolling dice with combat outcomes if you want to win? Well, that's up to you, but don't expect to streak any time soon if you make a habit of it.

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Tartarus Sorceror

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Post Thursday, 29th December 2016, 19:38

Re: UC Troll vs Hydra

^This is why zerk is a bad potion/ability after the early game. Sure it will usually trivialize a fight... but rarely you will get damage spiked or other opponent will show up or you'll misjudge a unique, and then you will be stuck unable to use spells and items for a few turns, and then slowed for a while after that.

Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Sunday, 1st January 2017, 21:38

Re: UC Troll vs Hydra

Rast wrote:^This is why zerk is a bad potion/ability after the early game. Sure it will usually trivialize a fight... but rarely you will get damage spiked or other opponent will show up or you'll misjudge a unique, and then you will be stuck unable to use spells and items for a few turns, and then slowed for a while after that.

Zerk is great for late game, when used in the narrow threat range for which it is appropriate, in the correct isolated circumstance. It is dangerous as heck when used incorrectly.
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Crypt Cleanser

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Post Monday, 2nd January 2017, 00:21

Re: UC Troll vs Hydra

Theyre speed 10 dude, just avoid them until you have a lot of large rocks, my last troll had like 1-2 hydras wandering each floor in lair. If you are right next to a hydra, carefully use energy randomization to escape or just tele out.

Dungeon Dilettante

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Post Monday, 2nd January 2017, 18:34

Re: UC Troll vs Hydra

Thank you for the good advice and discussion everyone. Using this advice on this thread I can reliably get past the lair branches with trolls.

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