Yet another i'm really frustrated post (an a cry for advise)

[neodarkness]

Hey guys, I've been playing SSDC for about a year now and the best I've gotten was a single rune :S
I always play a Berseker Mountain Dwarf. Last game I was lvl 18, ~30 AC, had 20 on the shield skill, was extremely resistant to magic (had about 3 items granting MR, plus Hand of Trog) but yet died (yet again) in the Elven Halls 7... I even had 3 good mutations (I usually shy away from mutations)
What am I doing wrong? I was cautious, had already cleaned the level, except for the main room. Almost all elves died in under 5 strikes, I even went up and replenished my piety to be able to summon allies, I used corridors as I should, and yet it was not enough... Am I trying Elven Halls 7 too early? Do I NEED a scroll of silence? Shield of reflection? What am I missing? thought high AC and MR will suffice! :S
All elves were easy except Annihilators and Demonologist. This time, a single Demonologist killed me (spamming a bunch of demons, including Hellions and a Executioner). I lured them into a corridor and tried everything, but couldn't even escape to the stairs and couldn't kill them :S
Advise???
BTW, damn RNG... I found a treasure trove early on, but it's price was 5 scrolls of magic mapping... I only saw 3 of them in the whole game (one of which I lost use-identifying...)

This was him (attachment), btw...

[hxy]

Scroll of Silence is quite rare. XL 18 is ok for Elf:7 although I'd usually stay away from the branch ends until XL 20+
One way to tackle demonologists is not to give them opportunity to summon - instead of heading towards it across a room, retreat and lure it around a bend or corner so that you can finish it off as quickly as possible once it comes in sight.
AC or MR will not protect you from elemental attacks (bolt of cold/fire/etc), hellfire (from the Hellions), or torment.

[MyOtheHedgeFox]

You are not HeadOn: do not apply yourself directly to the forehead of each and every enemy. =)

You are in the Dungeons. Do you know how thieves deal with the unpleasant enemies?
Sadly, the most dishonourable tactics are one of the most convenient against some enemies: such are their weak spots that it is hard to deal with them the other way.

[snow]

Or... just don't do elf?

Do dungeon up to lair, lair 1-6, dungeon up to vaults, vaults 1-7, dungeon down to floor 26, get 3 runes, do dungeon floor 27, Zot, and win? For Zot gear just chop up a storm dragon if you have a ring of fire resistance or if you don't just chop up a gold dragon and sip resistance potions against electric enemies in Zot.

[DivineHammer]

I do think XL18 is probably a little early to take on the bottom of Elf, at least for a MdBe. If you were a caster with poison cloud and alistair's intoxication, I'd say go for it, but for a berserker it's worth waiting till you're stronger. I notice you hadn't cleared Snake, which I would say is easier (and more straightforward) than Elf, especially since your character had the rPois mutation.

For a melee character, I think the end of Elf is all about careful pulling and having an escape route. You want to fight as few elves at a time as possible. And since you have no means of abjuration, you want to be able to run away if there are too many summoned demons. Just get up a flight of stairs and wait for them to poof away. Looks like you were trying to do that (popping a tele scroll), but perhaps you left it too late.

By the way, you were wearing a -2 cap, which would give you negative armor. You probably just didn't notice.

[neodarkness]

I'll try that. I also realized I was playing the previous version and updated to 8.0.1 I read it buffed a bit the heavy armor functions xD

[absolutego]

as snow said, there's just no need to do elf, and it's just a bad idea to do it that soon, moreso without abjuration.

also note that 0.9 should be out what, this week? there's a lot of new stuff, and the new skill system will make it much easier to train evocations as a MDBe, which is helpful, especially if you find early acquirement and blow it in a rod (which i would, unless gold is preferrable).

[slowcar]

there is no safe way to fight a 1er summoner as a melee character. executioners outrun you, tormenting or hellfire spamming fiends kill you quickly.
an antimagic weapon helps if you can get them to melee (and they act randomly, so melee opens up the possibility of them hitting you instead of summoning devils).

elf7 (or 5) still allows teleport, if something bad happens click that scroll. of course there is a chance that you land in even bigger trouble, but reasonably so.

[brgmahiko]

As per my experience with MdBe first i recommend updating to trunk or 0.8 haha.

Success as an MdBe is basically managing exp for maximal benefit. after youve got off the ground, train axes (or whatever weapon you choose) to min delay. http://crawl.chaosforge.org/index.php?title=Weapon_Speed is a good place to start looking for what level that is.

Example, if youre using axes (Broad Axe is a good weapon trog will give you) these would be my exp goals as a MdBe (no casting game).

1. Early game stabilization (Off everything, Axes to 6)
2. Armor, Fighting Shields and Axes always on afterwards.
3. Stop shields at 5 if you only have a buckler. 10 for shield, 15 for large shield. (If you find a large shield, race it to 15)
4. Stop axes at 18 (Trog should have given you a broad axe at this point)
5. With axes and shields off, Sink your Exp into fighting, armor and dodging. Youll want at least 10 EV. Getting early skill levels will be easy at this point.
6. Traps and doors at around 10 and stop (do this around the time you do vaults)
7. If you find a good sling or think you need it to kill fleeing enemies, never raise it past skill 7 to prevent trog ammo gifts. Or any ranged skill for that matter.

past here is late game and ~post end game exp management

7. Fighting > Armor > Axes > Shield > Dodging are all good investments at this point. Raise them all equally to have a nicely rounded character.

Allocate your 9th and 12th level stat bonus into Int for stat death prevention (not super necessary, but a nice thing to have).

Youd want to have 2 Broad axes, one anti magic (for casters) and another one for non spell casting, Elec > Freeze > Fire. Raise the anti-magic one to +7+7 before upgrading the other.

[brgmahiko]

^ is legit.

The example i gave is axes but polearms, longswords and M&F (Demon trident, (double sword)/Katana, Demon whip) would be vastly superior for 1h fighting. Although if you want to play a flavorful 2h zerker Exec axe is the way to go.

also i have mistaken information there on shield levels, should be adjusted to 5/15/25. i was playing centaur recently and i posted the values for one.

[neodarkness]

heheheh so many questions...
ok:
1. Axes or Maces? I usually had gone for Maces since they are more diverse (and save me some trouble with Hydras)
2. Dodging/Evasion: Since I am usually using Plate Mail (at least until I get Gold Dragon Armor) + Large Shield and not so great of a Dex... Isn't it a waste?
3. One handed vs two-handed? When I first begun playing I preferred two-handed, but since I grown to prefer the safety of shields... any opinions?
3. The weight of STR: I found this ( http://www.reddit.com/r/roguelikes/comm ... tr_weight/ ) at reddit. People there are arguing over whether the STR bias in a Evening Star will outweight the superiority of a Demon Whip. I couldn't find a conclusive answer, but contradictory positions. What do you guys think (taking into account that I am a MDBe... ~(Str30,Dex12)?
4, Traps&Doors, really? Never had any use for it (I keep it off with Dodging at the beginning of the game)

On another note, I got my first 2 runes on a character only to die a bit latter against a single solitary ice dragon (I had a nice artifact Rc++ demon whip of freezing that could have saved me, but I changed it for an Anti-magic inferior eveninstar because I thought Str weight might be important xD )

[Happy Corner]

Some answers!

Maces > Axes. Especially if you play Berserkers. Eventually Trog will give you a demon whip, which are among the most awesome weapons in the game. Also (as you have noticed) hydra-whacking is easier with maces. Maces are also very common (moreso than axes), so your odds of finding a branded one early are not bad.

One-handed is best. Having a shield (and extra line of defense) is better than any benefit from two-handed weapons (IMO). Especially if you also go heavy armor (and thus give up EV). There are certain exceptions (like finding a really awesome two-handed randart weapon), but as a general rule, go one-handed + shield.

Traps and Doors skill is very important when you get to Zot. I've lost characters because I missed a teleport trap and ended up in a vault full of ancient liches and orbs of fire. Also Zot-type traps (which can appear in any of the later levels/branches, not just in Zot) are really nasty. Keep Traps and Doors skill on all game!

Don't worry about Strength/Dex weight. Use the weapon with the best combination of speed, base damage/damage bonus, and (if randart) useful properties.

As for your recent death (condolences!), the lesson of that is to switch to resistant weapons when you need them. The other lesson is that demon whips are better maces than evening stars, even when your Strength is high!

[neodarkness]

Ohh ok ok, I'll take your points into consideration. Also, did you imply that I was correct in renouncing EV?
Thanks for the quick reply

[Happy Corner]

I apologize, I forgot to say anything about EV (and whether you should renounce it).

You can actually succeed with either EV or AC. Some of my Berserker victories have been tanks with uber-AC, but other victories have been EV dodge monsters. A couple have been kinda in-between.

It is really race-dependent. Look at your race's aptitudes (Dodging, Armor, and whether you start with high Dex), and that should decide it for you. If your race is equally good at both, then you get to choose. (Sadly, you usually DO have to choose. Especially with a short 3-rune Berserker game, it's hard to get both EV and AC on the same character.)

Mountain Dwarf Berserkers (your type) should go AC (heavy armor) + large shield and forsake Dex (with plate mail and golden dragon armor, you will never have high EV anyway). However, some here say that EV is more useful the less you have of it and thus Dex would still be worthwhile in your case. I don't know, I still choose Strength for AC characters. You will have to choose what you think is best, see how it works out, and learn for future characters...

[KoboldLord]

While it's true that another point of EV is more significant if you don't have much of it already, getting that next point is incredibly difficult if you are wearing heavy armour. Anything with an EV penalty of higher than -3 and the returns from Dodging skill and dexterity are so low as to be effectively useless.

Do you have a source on that, by the way? My understanding of the code is a little sketchy, since I'm going off henzell rather than actually going source-diving, but my understanding is that the defender rolls an EV-sided die and compares it to the attacker's hit score, which is usually a function of the attacker's hit die if the attacker is a monster. Which means that EV does literally nothing against strong enemies until you get it to a particular threshold which varies from monster to monster.

[neodarkness]

FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU
...
I had 2 runes, was lvl 24, some nice equipment and then... I decided to go to the abyss in search of it's rune (since a Trove required it)...
I've been several times there and always found the gate pretty fast... this time, however, the gate wouldn't be found... I ran out of food and got swarmed by demons while unconscious............................................................
Furthermore, I had never found the orc mines (can it even NOT be generated? xD)
Why did I decided to go to the abyss????? xD

[speciesxx]

I think Orc Mines should always be there. You must have missed it somehere. If yuo press CTRL+o you can see on which dungeon levels it can be generated (once you are deep enough). Maybe you missed a stairs (there should always be 3 up and 3 down). Some levels have seperated parts generated, so you have to use different stairs to fully explore a level.

And the Abyss... it's nasty. Been there a few times, and only got out like 1-2 times. Just ran from everything i saw, and was lucky to find the gate early. Not a place i fancy going again lol.

Good luck on your next character. Keep on going . Eventually you will get there !

[bobross419]

FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU
...
I had 2 runes, was lvl 24, some nice equipment and then... I decided to go to the abyss in search of it's rune (since a Trove required it)...
I've been several times there and always found the gate pretty fast... this time, however, the gate wouldn't be found... I ran out of food and got swarmed by demons while unconscious............................................................
Furthermore, I had never found the orc mines (can it even NOT be generated? xD)
Why did I decided to go to the abyss????? xD

Could be worse. I haven't yet made it past 15... that character died because I didn't see an Ice Dragon against a white background tile

[asdu]

While it's true that another point of EV is more significant if you don't have much of it already, getting that next point is incredibly difficult if you are wearing heavy armour. Anything with an EV penalty of higher than -3 and the returns from Dodging skill and dexterity are so low as to be effectively useless.

Do you have a source on that, by the way? My understanding of the code is a little sketchy, since I'm going off henzell rather than actually going source-diving, but my understanding is that the defender rolls an EV-sided die and compares it to the attacker's hit score, which is usually a function of the attacker's hit die if the attacker is a monster. Which means that EV does literally nothing against strong enemies until you get it to a particular threshold which varies from monster to monster.

According to http://crawl.chaosforge.org/index.php?title=Evasion the attacker's hit score is determined by a roll that ranges from 0 to the to-hit number which is then compared to the EV roll (which is apparently not an EV-sided die but the average of two rolls ranging from zero to ((2*EV)-1)), hence there should be no threshold.