How to properly make use of Kiku?

[Vajrapani]

I always see posts about strong Kiku is and the playstyle seemed fun, so I've wanted to win with him. The problem is I have no real idea how to play him. The corpse drop + animate dead is strong but your defense is likely to be weak(since you're wearing ring mail at best) and your offense isn't likely to be better than a pure melee tabber of okawaru or trog. Corpse rot also has some good uses. Playing Kiku seems super fiddly, I'm having more trouble with him than Chei, who I won with the first ever time I picked him, who is supposedly much weaker than him. I haven't gotten a character past lair with him. The combinations I've had the most success with is DrGl and VpMo.

The spells I've used the most are corpse rot and animate dead, I don't see much use for the other ones that he gives but I bet I've been neglecting some obvious one that can carry me through lair,orc,dungeon.

[bel]

Trog is super strong as well, so it does not really make sense to compare Trog with Kiku.

Here's a typical example where Kiku is useful: an enchanter, say VpEn. You hex monsters you can hex, and zombies/simulacra take care of the rest. There are other uses for zombies, for instance: zombies distract monsters so you can get in stabs on them.

As for useful spells in the later game: death channel combined with zombies/simulacra sets up a snowball effect where you can take out a big crowd, or even the whole floor, in one sweep. Kiku also gives a guaranteed pain branded weapon.

[TonberryJam]

well with kiku, you will only need Necromancy and enough spellcasting for spells, until you need some ice and summoning for the lvl 6 & 7 spells. This allows you to train a weapon and defense at the start with no issue.

You can go the heavy armour route and favor STR over INT and still be able to use a few spells sooner like animate dead and dispel undead. And, the low level spells favor melee. corpse rot to control. SoB to keep casting Vampirc Draining.

Even then Animate Dead is typically the best skill with high necro. Corpse rot works with corpse delivery as u know.

[MainiacJoe]

I found on my recent Kiku runs, all failures, that if I didn't get Animate Skeleton in my first book, I was essentially godless for the early game. Which is another way of saying, I clearly underuse Corpse Rot. It seemed way too fiddly to me - call corpse/kill something, maneuver solely for putting a monster on it, pop the cloud. Obviously, that's not too fiddly, since CR is seen as strong. I just don't get it.

[stickyfingers]

Corpse Rot is the staple of Kiku early game. He'd still be strong if he didn't give any spell besides that one.

[NhorianScum]

Just roll stock standard Ds heavy mele and cap out at death channel + pain brand treating necromancy as a much better version of invocations, and only train spell-casting for spell success on pure necro spells, light charms is pretty useful but not necessary. Corpse drop+rot often and wrap yourself in a nice protective cocoon of undead flesh in any remotely dangerous situation.

[cerebovssquire]

Agony is a fantastic spell, and you won't run into too many problems with monster MR with it for a long time.

[neverEnough]

Corpse rot would be the definitive spell all over dungeon, no matter how much are u underlevelled against any creep. The issue is that u will run out of corpses pretty fast if u spam It like this since u can't ask how many corpses to request (typically 1~5 iirc depending in your reserve).
So play in a standard careful way, just don't forget to quaff recall corpses.

[ZipZipskins]

Have you done an IE or EE with Kiku yet

[dracos369]

My Kiku win was DrIE. I first focused on my spellbook, then got animate dead online. Pain-branded a spear(btw, pain-branding gives you a free torment) and then poked everything over my undead slaves/ice beasts.