Troll Transmuter


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Temple Termagant

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Post Wednesday, 11th April 2012, 01:59

Troll Transmuter

I want to try and run a 15-runer on one.

Besides luck, what is a nice skill build in your opinion? I'm trying to run unarmed to 15, fighting to 5, then pump transmutations for blade hands.

Going for Chei ---> Jiyva

Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Wednesday, 11th April 2012, 02:06

Re: Troll Transmuter

You're going to have pretty terrible defenses for a very long time - it wouldn't be too much harder to try to go for statue form instead of blade hands. Still a great boost to damage, but gives you impressive defenses as well. Two drawbacks are finding the spellbook, and since it's transmutation/earth, it will take a bit more experience to get online, but should be worth it.
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Abyss Ambulator

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Post Wednesday, 11th April 2012, 02:48

Re: Troll Transmuter

Blade hands troll is lousy and pointless. Statue troll is incredibly overpowered. Troll Transmuter of chei is gimping yourself, because statue form is really dangerous with chei and chei sucks in general.

Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Wednesday, 11th April 2012, 03:00

Re: Troll Transmuter

1) Chei doesn't suck
2) why is statue form and chei together dangerous? You'd be moving at about the same speed as a naga of chei, which is an awesome build I've 15 runed with.

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Tartarus Sorceror

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Post Wednesday, 11th April 2012, 03:14

Re: Troll Transmuter

Troll of Chei kind of sucks, but not after you're able to use Statue Form. Statue Troll of Chei is a true monster, as long as you know what you're doing. Temporal Distortion is one of your best friends here.
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Abyss Ambulator

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Post Wednesday, 11th April 2012, 03:26

Re: Troll Transmuter

tasonir wrote:1) Chei doesn't suck
2) why is statue form and chei together dangerous? You'd be moving at about the same speed as a naga of chei, which is an awesome build I've 15 runed with.

1) Chei does suck -- whether or not he is fun to play with (I don't like him; others do), his abilities simply do not make up for the loss of movement speed and the loss of haste. Haste instantly makes you 50% more powerful, and this cannot be overstated.
2) statue form and chei together isn't an issue because of movement speed (since every chei worshipper has to deal with that anyway [see point 1]); it's an issue because of attack speed. It's not incredibly dangerous, but having all your attacks come much more slowly than they would otherwise can be quite dangerous. Trolls can get away with it, because statue troll is insane, but it's certainly not optimal. (Usually statue form is coupled with haste, which cancels out the attack speed penalty while retaining the damage boost. With Chei, you can't do this.)

Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Wednesday, 11th April 2012, 05:12

Re: Troll Transmuter

Trolls are actually pretty decent with chei imo. That said if you want to play a Jiyva game just go Jiyva. You'll get most of Chei's stat benefits anyway by turning your excessive str growth into int/dex from Jiyva stat shifting anyway.

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Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Wednesday, 11th April 2012, 11:10

Re: Troll Transmuter

tasonir wrote:1) Chei doesn't suck
2) why is statue form and chei together dangerous? You'd be moving at about the same speed as a naga of chei, which is an awesome build I've 15 runed with.


It's less an issue of chei sucking and more an issue of Haste being insanely good in comparison.
Naga of chei is definitely not an awesome 15-rune build - you are depriving yourself a 50% boost to character strength and also don't get many useful powers in comparison (heals-on-kills, decks, etc.). There are so many builds out there that are better suited for allruning. That you still managed it speaks either for your quality as a player or for a lack of difficulty in extended (probably both) but not for the strength of the character.
Ely sort of sucks for non-pacifiers nowadays, Zin hates transmutations and Jiyva, and TSO was buffed a lot but won't like Spider Form, so probably just going Jiyva when you find an altar is the way to go if you find a Jiyva game. Okawaru and Makhleb will make for the easiest wins.

Skill build for me would usually be this:
Transmutations till Spider Form (very good early on)
Unarmed till 10
Transmutations/Ice/Spellcasting (not at the same time) till Ice Form
Unarmed till 15
Fighting till 10

and then either Dodging or UC, probably the former.
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Tartarus Sorceror

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Post Wednesday, 11th April 2012, 15:38

Re: Troll Transmuter

minmay wrote:
tasonir wrote:You're going to have pretty terrible defenses for a very long time

You should probably try casting Spider Form some time.

Spider Form might be a great help to a TrTm, but a TrTm of Chei?

Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Wednesday, 11th April 2012, 15:48

Re: Troll Transmuter

You get the boost to evasion in spider form, regardless of which deity you worship.

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Halls Hopper

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Post Wednesday, 11th April 2012, 16:46

Re: Troll Transmuter

As others mentioned, statue is far better for trolls. Personally, I'd go Sif before Jiyva to get those all important spells: statue form, haste, stoneskin, blink and friends, swift, flight, deflect, dig, etc. I'd keep unarmed, spellcasting, and transmutations skills always on, and focus on transmutations. You should concentrate more on gameplay than skill management.
Side note: The torment and rot resistance of statue form is also very useful for certain branches.

Just my 2 pennies...
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Abyss Ambulator

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Post Wednesday, 11th April 2012, 16:51

Re: Troll Transmuter

sif to anyone is generally a bad idea, since sif wrath is really nasty unless you wait it out (and trolls can't wait it out effectively because hunger). Oka > jiyva might be plausible (but you'd need a fairly late conversion), but really it's not a big deal to just wait until you find a jiyva altar.

Spider Stomper

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Post Sunday, 15th April 2012, 20:26

Re: Troll Transmuter

Blade wrote:Blade hands troll is lousy and pointless.

Could you explain the reasons why?
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Vestibule Violator

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Post Sunday, 15th April 2012, 20:52

Re: Troll Transmuter

ElectricAlbatross wrote:
Blade wrote:Blade hands troll is lousy and pointless.

Could you explain the reasons why?

Trolls already have great honking claws growing from their hands, that give them very good bonuses in unarmed combat. But blade hands replaces your hands, claws and all, with giant blades. So it's not additive- you're discarding one of your racial advantages.

Then there's the opportunity cost- you could be casting statue form instead, which does let you keep your claws, and does stack unarmed bonuses, (instead of replacing your claws, they and your hands turn to stone) plus gives you resists and fixes your squishy troll defense.

(...I'd compare numbers instead of explaining the in game physics, but the knowledge bots explain claws 3 and statue form in terms of bonuses, and blade hands in terms of base damage. Not sure how to make those jive).
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Abyss Ambulator

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Post Sunday, 15th April 2012, 22:09

Re: Troll Transmuter

Yeah, that nails it. Troll already has great UC. Blade Hands does very little on top of that, while statue form makes you an unstoppable raging monster who can take Cerebov down with barely a scratch on your stone hide. Blade hands is a waste of spell slots for troll (especially now that you can't zap wands, etc. with blade hands).

Vestibule Violator

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Post Wednesday, 18th April 2012, 18:27

Re: Troll Transmuter

Blade wrote:Yeah, that nails it. Troll already has great UC. Blade Hands does very little on top of that, while statue form makes you an unstoppable raging monster who can take Cerebov down with barely a scratch on your stone hide. Blade hands is a waste of spell slots for troll (especially now that you can't zap wands, etc. with blade hands).

What's that now? Is this new in trunk? :cry:
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Abyss Ambulator

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Post Wednesday, 18th April 2012, 18:32

Re: Troll Transmuter

Yes.
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Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Wednesday, 18th April 2012, 19:07

Re: Troll Transmuter

Blade Hands vs Hydra < Stone Form vs Hydra
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Eringya's Employee

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Post Wednesday, 18th April 2012, 19:29

Re: Troll Transmuter

http://crawl.develz.org/morgues/0.10/TehDruid/morgue-TehDruid-20120305-175629.txt
Now that I look at this character again, I can't believed I managed to die with that awesome gear. By the way, I went for Jiyva directly and I only found the altar after clearing the entire Lair. :D Too bad I didn't manage to win this.
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Spider Stomper

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Post Wednesday, 18th April 2012, 20:31

Re: Troll Transmuter

XuaXua wrote:Blade Hands vs Hydra < Stone Form vs Hydra

Ice Form is the go-to anti-Hydra spell for my TrTms, since it takes away their claws.

Shoals Surfer

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Post Saturday, 22nd April 2017, 05:24

Re: Troll Transmuter

I would focus UC for all of dungeon. Wear any armour or shield found with the large shield being ideal. After that you have a lot of options. Since you rolled Tms, I would get Ice Form up and running. Then u can ignore large rocks. And, you get sticks to snakes to throw at every unique you find.

Free stat points go to Int. Goal would be Statue Form and damaging Earth spells. Max key skills. And that's it.

Slime Squisher

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Post Saturday, 22nd April 2017, 15:34

Re: Troll Transmuter

Blade wrote:sif to anyone is generally a bad idea, since sif wrath is really nasty unless you wait it out


Getting access to all those spells makes up for the wrath IMO.
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Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Monday, 24th April 2017, 21:14

Re: Troll Transmuter

Holy thread necro. Hello to myself from 2012.
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Vaults Vanquisher

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Post Friday, 28th April 2017, 13:53

Re: Troll Transmuter

People who say "Chei is suck and Chei Statue is dangerous" should explain why my gnoll could win with lore-keeper

viewtopic.php?f=12&t=23483

I think Chei Statue is a game balance breaker

P.S.
2) statue form and chei together isn't an issue because of movement speed (since every chei worshipper has to deal with that anyway [see point 1]); it's an issue because of attack speed. It's not incredibly dangerous, but having all your attacks come much more slowly than they would otherwise can be quite dangerous.


I feel unarmed 12 + Statue is a quite fast attack (1.2/turn)
Last edited by radinms on Friday, 28th April 2017, 14:05, edited 1 time in total.
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Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Friday, 28th April 2017, 14:04

Re: Troll Transmuter

Chei is bad because when you join Chei you become worse than what you were without Chei. This happens in the early game which is the most dangerous part of the game.
DCSS: 97:...MfCj}SpNeBaEEGrFE{HaAKTrCK}DsFESpHu{FoArNaBe}
FeEE{HOIEMiAE}GrGlHuWrGnWrNaAKBaFi{MiDeMfDe}{DrAKTrAMGhEnGnWz}
{PaBeDjFi}OgAKPaCAGnCjOgCKMfAEAtCKSpCjDEEE{HOSu
Bloat: 17: RaRoPrPh{GuStGnCa}{ArEtZoNb}KiPaAnDrBXDBQOApDaMeAGBiOCNKAsFnFlUs{RoBoNeWi
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Vaults Vanquisher

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Post Friday, 28th April 2017, 14:06

Re: Troll Transmuter

Gnoll or Troll is a pretty strong in the early game, so no problem

Shoals Surfer

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Post Friday, 28th April 2017, 14:09

Re: Troll Transmuter

I'm pretty sure statue is no longer tied to str/dex.

Chei is pretty bad if you take him at temple (safety wise) but bend time and temp disto are strong enough to make an early altar worth considering on most dudes. If you want to go fast on not-DD, find him early, or just want an overly buff dude Chei is a really strong option.

Chei sucks arguments revolve around streak/winrate play, and the viability of gods taken from temple in this context.

Edit: Changes is one of the best early books for any dude, S2S is broken. Tm just has issues with low level UAC being low level UAC.
Last edited by NhorianScum on Friday, 28th April 2017, 14:34, edited 4 times in total.
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Barkeep

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Post Friday, 28th April 2017, 14:24

Re: Troll Transmuter

If you want a statue troll, I'd roll EE instead of Tm, it's not like Changes is super useful to Trolls outside of Ice Form. Having a reliable ranged attack helps with Chei's downsides, if you want to go the "take it easy" route.
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Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Friday, 28th April 2017, 21:39

Re: Troll Transmuter

@NhorianScum: True, statue form no longer raises its base damage based on strength, although this is not really important. Let's say a normalized 2h melee weapon character does 100 damage, then an old statue form chei character does 150, and after the change, it's down to 135. Your damage is still incredibly high. For trolls in particular, in statue form, this number is like 180 :P

@njvack: Agreed, EE is a great background for trolls. You don't need the strength from picking a melee background, and getting the int is very helpful for eventually casting spells. Stone arrow can be useful for a very long time when you need a ranged attack, generally when waiting for things to come into claw range for you.

Blades Runner

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Post Saturday, 29th April 2017, 21:26

Re: Troll Transmuter

people love giving crawl advice so much that they're just advising into the void here in this 5 year old thread

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Eringya's Employee

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Post Sunday, 30th April 2017, 06:41

Re: Troll Transmuter

Lel
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612 | D:1      | Xom revived you
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Barkeep

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Post Monday, 1st May 2017, 19:32

Re: Troll Transmuter

i just like typing
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Lair Larrikin

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Post Tuesday, 2nd May 2017, 01:13

Re: Troll Transmuter

yesno wrote:people love giving crawl advice arguing about chei so much that they're just advising into the void here in this 5 year old thread

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